."

For fully five minutes he sat holding the letter in his hand, staring
into vacancy.

"What can it mean? What can it mean?"

He put on a heavy ulster and left the hotel. "I don't think anyone
noticed who I am," he reflected. And then he made his way down past
the Free Trade Hall, towards Deansgate.

"Twenty-five Dixon Street," he kept on repeating to
himself--"twenty-five Dixon Street, off Dean Street."

He did not seem to know where he was going. More than once he hustled
someone on the sidewalk and then passed on as if unconscious of what he
had done. Presently he reached Dean Street and walked along it some
little distance; then, turning, he found himself in a network of short,
dark streets, evidently inhabited by a working-class community. He
looked at the numbers carefully as he passed along. After some little
time he stopped. He knocked at one of the doors and was immediately
admitted.

A second later the light fell on the form of a woman. Her face was
pale and haggard. In her eyes was a look of madness. The gaslight
also shone upon Judge Bolitho's face. He had placed his hat upon the
table, and his every feature was exposed.

The woman came close to him and looked at him steadily, while he, like
one fascinated, fixed his eyes upon her face.

"Douglas Graham," she said, "do you know me?"

For a few seconds he did not speak, but looked steadily at her. Then,
as if with difficulty, words escaped him.

"Jean!" he gasped. "Jean! Then you're not dead!"

"You know me, then, Douglas Graham? I have waited a long time for this
night. Sometimes I thought it would never come. Year after year I've
watched, all in vain, and then suddenly I learnt the truth!"

She did not seem like one in a passion. Her voice was low and hard.
Her hands were steady. Her eyes burnt with a mad light. It seemed as
though all the passion, all the hatred, all the despair of more than
twenty years were expressed in them just now.

"What do you want of me, Jean?"

He did not seem to know what he was saying, and the words escaped his
lips as if in spite of himself.

"Want of you? Want of you? Can you ask that? Your memory is not
dead. You know, and I know---- Why, I am your wife! Do you remember
that day up among the Scotch hills, when, before God, you took me, you
swore you would be faithful to me? Do you remember the promise you
made on the day you left me? 'I will soon come back to you,' you said,