, and never
stirred from it. He was ill: it was rheumatism, caught in Australia,
that took such a hold upon him; and I had him here by the fire till near
daylight in the morning, so as to keep him out of the damp shed. What
with fearing one thing and another, I grew into a state of perpetual
terror."

"Then you will not have him in here now," said Lord Hartledon, rising.

"I cannot," she said, her tears falling silently.

"Well, Mrs. Gum, I came in just to say a word of true sympathy. You have
it heartily, and my services also, if necessary. Tell Jabez so."

He quitted the house by the front-door, as if he had been honouring the
clerk's wife with a morning-call, should any curious person happen to be
passing, and went across through the snow to the surgeon's. Mr. Hillary,
an old bachelor, was at his early dinner, and Lord Hartledon sat down and
talked to him.

"It's only rump steak; but few cooks can beat mine, and it's very good.
Won't your lordship take a mouthful by way of luncheon?"

"My curiosity is too strong for luncheon just now," said Val. "I have
come over to know the rights and wrongs of this story. What has Willy Gum
been doing in the past years that it cannot be told?"

"I am not sure that it would be safe to say while he's living."

"Not safe! with me! Was it safe with you?"

"But I don't consider myself obliged to give up to justice any poor
criminal who comes in my way," said the surgeon; and Val felt a little
vexed, although he saw that he was joking.

"Come, Hillary!"

"Well, then, Willy Gum was coming home in the _Morning Star_; and a
mutiny broke out--mutiny and murder, and everything else that's bad; and
one George Gordon was the ringleader."

"Yes. Well?"

"Willy Gum was George Gordon."

"What!" exclaimed Hartledon, not knowing how to accept the words. "How
could he be George Gordon?"

"Because the real George Gordon never sailed at all; and this fellow Gum
went on board in his name, calling himself Gordon."

Lord Hartledon leaned back in his chair and listened to the explanation.
A very simple one, after all. Gum, one of the wildest and most careless
characters possible when in Australia, gambled away, before sailing,
the money he had acquired. Accident made him acquainted with George
Gordon, also going home in the same ship and with money. Gordon was
killed the night before sailing--(Mr. Carr had well described it as
a drunken brawl)--killed accidentally. Gum was present; he s