until this minute. Funny
things--resemblances."

"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather."

Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him
suddenly gone mad.

"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know
who I am?"

"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once
was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it
wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was
alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder
I hated you?"

Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed.

"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It--it is a
little hard to get all at once."

And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself
knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no
regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even
understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the
other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and
dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any
vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he
listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his
heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a
cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange
contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered
a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of
a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before
him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but
gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It
was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had
lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which
had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other.

"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your
identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant
to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning
monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward
confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make
mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I could