that she perished. The letter
that she wrote you may have been a blind. Such things have happened. Try
and remember that such things have happened."

He did not seem to hear me. Turning away, he looked about him with
wide-open and questioning eyes, like a child lost in a wood.

"I cannot follow you," he murmured. "Marah living?" His own words seemed
to give him life. He turned upon me again. "Do you know that she is
living?" he asked. "Is it this you have come to tell me? If so, speak,
speak! I can bear the news. I have not lost all firmness. I--I--"

He stopped and looked at me piteously. I saw I must speak, and summoned
up my courage.

"Marah may not be living," I said, "but she did not perish in the river.
It would have been better for you, though, and infinitely better for her
if she had. She only lived to do evil, Mr. Felt. In bemoaning her you
have wasted a noble manhood."

"Oh!"

The cry came suddenly, and rang through the cavern like a knell. I could
not bear it, and hurried forward my revelation.

"You tell me that you received a letter from Mrs. Urquhart before she
set sail for France. Was it the only letter which she has ever sent you?
Have you never heard from her since?"

"Never!" He looked at me almost in anger. "I did not want to. I bade the
postmaster to destroy any letters which came for me. I had cut myself
loose from the world."

"Have you that letter? Did you keep it?"

"No; I gave it back to the men who opened it. What was it to me?"

"Mark Felt," I now asked, "did you know Honora Dudleigh's writing?"

"Of course. Why should you question it? Why--"

"And was this letter in her writing? written by her hand?"

"Of course--of course; wasn't it signed with her name?"

"But the handwriting? Couldn't it have been an imitation? Wasn't it one?
Was it not written by Marah, and not Honora? She was a clever woman,
and--"

"Written by Marah? By Marah? Great heavens, did she go with them, then?
Were my secret doubts right? Is she lost to me in eternity as well as
here? Is she living with him?"

"She was living with him, and there is good reason to believe she is
doing so still. There is a Mr. Urquhart in Paris, and a Mrs. Urquhart.
As Marah is the woman he loved, she must be this latter."

"Must be? I do not see why you should say must be! Is Honora dead? Is--"

"Honora is dead--has been dead for sixteen years. The woman who sailed
with Mr. Urquhart called herself Honora, but she was not