this house already, without the mention to that man, who knows nothing
of me or of my history, of a name hateful to both you and me?"

"At present I have no intention of telling you what I meant by
introducing that name in the presence of Rogers."

"More mystery!" said he.

"No mystery--all as plain as little Edith's card she got from Trott, or
the blazon in the wood, or the mark on the child's back. But I do not
wish to dwell longer on a subject which gives you so much pain. I am to
be off in the morning, and I should wish, before I go, to know what is
to be the issue of all this wonderful working."

Graeme had now seated himself; and I resumed my chair also, to wait an
answer, which his manner seemed to indicate might be slow and delicate.
We looked, in the dim light of the room, at two in the morning, like two
wizards trying our skill in working out some scheme of _diablerie_; yet,
in reality, how unlike! For though we had both been gamblers, and
consequently bad men, we had for years renounced the wild ways of an
ill-regulated youth, and settled down to tread, with pleasure to
ourselves and profit to others, the decent paths of virtue.

"I am resolved," said Graeme at length----

"On what?" I inquired.

"On making amends. That money, which by means of the substituted card I
took from Gourlay, sticks like a bone-splint in the red throat of my
penitence. I cannot pray myself, nor join Annabel, nor listen to Edith,
when they send up their supplications to that place where mercy is, and
where, too, vengeance is--vengeance which, in the very form of my
pictured crime, dogs me everywhere, as you have seen, though a
philosophical pride prevents you from giving faith to what you have
seen--vengeance which, though using no earthly instruments, is yet the
stronger, and more terrible to me, for that very circumstance that it
brings up my conscience, and parades its pictured whisperings before my
vision, scorching my brain, and making me mad--vengeance, breaking no
bones, nor lacerating flesh, nor spilling blood, yet going to the heart
of the human organism, among the fine tissues where begin the rudiments
of being, and whence issue the springs of feeling, sympathy, hope, love,
and justice, all of which it poisons, and turns into agonies. Yes, sir,
vengeance which, claiming the assistance of the fairest virtues,
conjugal love and angelic purity, makes them smite with shame, so that
it were even a relief to me that the