upon his own.

"Gilbert," he said at last, "what have they done with my wife? Why has
she been kept away from me?"

"Your wife? Marian?"

"Yes Marian. You know her name, surely. Did she know that I was ill, and
yet stayed away from me?"

"Was her place here, John Saltram?--that poor girl whom you married under
a false name, whom you tried to hide from all the world. Have you ever
brought her here? Have you ever given her a wife's license, or a wife's
place? How many lies have you not told to hide that which any honest man
would have been proud to confess to all the world?"

"Yes, I have lied to you about her, I have hidden my treasure. But it was
for your sake, Gilbert; it was for the sake of our old friendship. I
could not hear to lose you; I could not bear to stand revealed before you
as the weak wretch who betrayed your trust and stole your promised wife.
Yes, Gilbert, I have been guilty beyond all measure. I have looked you in
the face and told you lies. I wanted to keep you for my friend; I could
not stand the thought of a life-long breach between us. Gilbert, old
friend, have pity on me. I was weak--wicked, if you like--but I loved you
very dearly."

He stretched out his bony hand with an appealing gesture, but it was not
taken. Gilbert sat with his head turned away, his face hidden from the
sick man.

"Anything would have been better than the course you chose," he said at
last in a very quiet voice. "If she loved you better than me--than me,
who would have thought it so small a thing to lay down my life for her
happiness, or to stand aloof and keep the secret of my broken heart while
I blest her as the cherished wife of another--if you had certain reason
to be sure she loved you, you should have asserted your right to claim
her love like a man, and should have been prompt to tell me the bitter
truth. I am a man, and would have borne the blow as a man should bear it.
But to sneak into my place behind my back, to steal her away from me, to
marry her under a false name--a step that might go far to invalidate the
marriage, by the way--and then leave me to piece-out the broken story,
syllable by syllable, to suffer all the torture of a prolonged suspense,
all the wasted passion of anger and revenge against an imaginary enemy,
to find at last that the man I had loved and trusted, honoured and
admired beyond all other men throughout the best years of my life, was
the man who had struck this secret blow--it was t