woman to wife, when I had promised before God to be faithful
to another. I tried to persuade myself that the Scotch marriage was
not only informal but illegal, and could have no weight of whatever
nature, yet my heart swept away all the sophistries of my mind, and
proclaimed me to be a villain. So much moved was I by this that I at
length decided to send a man to Scotland to make inquiries. Of course,
he never dreamed of my connection with the affair, and thought that I
was only hunting up evidence for some case in which I was interested
professionally. After a time he returned with the news that Jean
Lindsay was dead, that she died some months after I had left her,
probably of a broken heart, certainly in disgrace. Need I say what I
suffered? You would not believe me if I told you! How could anyone
who had acted a coward's part as I had, suffer? Yet so it was. And
yet in my suffering was a sense of freedom. Nothing now seemed to
depend upon the possible legality or illegality of my former marriage.
The woman I had wedded was dead, at least so I was assured, and so I
believed. I went to Cornwall prepared to do my adopted father's
bidding.

"When I arrived there, I found him almost in a state of panic. Mary
was missing! What had become of her no one knew. Personally I
believed that she so hated the thought of marrying me that she had
determined to escape. More than five years had now passed away since
my visit to Scotland, and, as I said, I had been called to the Bar with
fair prospects of success. The name I bore was old and respected. It
was a passport into any society that I desired. Again I felt as though
the fates were fighting for me. After all, in spite of everything, I
should be free to live my own life, and the consequences of my
cowardice and sin would never be visited upon me. The fact that my
name had been changed from Graham to Bolitho was practically unknown,
and even those with whom I forgathered as a student had become
accustomed to my new name. It seemed natural to them, I suppose, that
I, in order to become my adopted father's heir, should also adopt his
name. Indeed, I have been described in certain handbooks as the only
son of Hugh Bolitho of Tredinnick, Cornwall.

"More than a year passed before I heard anything again of Mary Tregony,
and then I received an urgent message summoning me to the West of
England. It seems that my adopted father had at length found out where
she wa