grew used to the dusk the
figure of an old, old woman, lean and wrinkled, past a hundred, suddenly
rose from a chair, stood erect, and regarded him with startled, burning
eyes.

"Ah, it's the governor, the great governor, Henry Ware!" she exclaimed.
"Didn't I say to you long ago: 'You will come again, and you will be thin
and pale and in rags, and you will fall at the door.' I see you coming
with these two eyes of mine!"

As she spoke, the young man in the tattered Southern uniform, stained
with the blood of two wounds, reeled and fell unconscious in the doorway.

When Harry came back to the world he was lying in a very comfortable bed,
and all the pain had gone from his head. A comfortable, motherly woman,
whom he recognized as Mrs. Simmons, was sitting beside him, and Colonel
Leonidas Talbot, looking very tall, very spare and very precise, was
standing at a window.

"Good morning, Mrs. Simmons," said Harry in a clear, full voice.

She uttered an exclamation of joy, and Colonel Talbot turned from the
window.

"So you've come back to us, Harry," he said. "We knew that it was only a
matter of time, although you did lose a lot of blood from that wound in
the shoulder."

"I never intended to stay away, sir."

"But you remained in the shadowy world three days."

"That long, sir?"

"Yes, Harry, three days, and a great deal of water has flowed under the
bridge in those three days."

"What do you mean, colonel?"

"There was a military operation of a very sharp and decisive character.
When you fell in the doorway here, Mrs. Simmons, who happened to be in
the kitchen, ran at once for her brother, Mr. Jarvis, a most excellent
and intelligent man. You were past telling anybody anything just then,
but he followed your trail, and met some of us, led by Sergeant Whitley,
who were also trailing you."

"And Slade and Skelly, what of them?"

"They'll never plunder or murder more. We divined much that had
happened. You were ambushed, were you not?"

"Yes, Slade and Skelly fired upon me from the bushes. I shot back and
saw Skelly fall."

"You shot straight and true. We found him there in the bushes, where
your bullet had cut short his murderous life. Then we organized, pursued
and surrounded the others. They were desperate criminals, who knew the
rope awaited them, and all of them died with their boots on. Slade made
a daring attempt to escape, but the sergeant shot him through the head at
long range, and