monogram J.
M., and on the back a coat-of-arms. The lines of the monogram were
distinct and sharp to the touch, they must have been cut many years
after the locket itself was made, but the coat-of-arms seemed
contemporary with the rest of the chasing. He tried to open it, but
the dampness had caused it to stick, so that he broke his nails upon
the fastening. He took out his knife and attempted to lever its edges
apart with the blade. At last, growing impatient, he set it on its
hinges upon a rock and commenced to hammer it with a stone. At the
third blow the fastening gave, and the sides fell apart. He could see
that it contained a miniature, and, on the other side, a lock of hair;
but the glasses which shut them in were mist-covered. He rubbed them
clean on the lining of his coat and looked again.

The portrait was that of a young girl, fresh and innocent, about
eighteen years of age; her hair, worn loose, all blown about, fell
upon her neck and shoulders in long curls; her eyes were blue and
intensely bright; her face was animated, with a certain dash of
generous spirit and healthy defiance in it, which were chiefly denoted
by the full firm lips and arching brows--and the face was the face of
Mordaunt. For the first time, he saw the woman whom he had loved, in
her rightful woman's guise. He had often longed that he might do that;
it had made him feel that he shared so small a portion of her life
that he should know her only by her man's name and remember her only
in her Yukon placer-miner's dress. He would have stooped to kiss her
lips at that time, had it not been for the presence of the dead, who
had also loved her and from whom he had stolen his treasure. Would his
body be able to rest in the grave when thus robbed of the symbol of
the passion which had caused its blood to pulsate most fiercely in its
life?

Then he fell to thinking other thoughts--of how strangely this
knowledge had come to him, from all across the world, by the hand of a
rejected lover who was dead. Had this been the secret which the
corporal had waited to tell him, thrown up on the ice, lying silent
and deserted throughout that month at the bend; had he been waiting
only to say, "I hold the knowledge which you most desire in my
clenched right hand. Here is her woman's likeness. I require it no
longer, now that I am dead?" No, surely he had not delayed for that.
Then suddenly he realised that this must mean that the woman herself
was dead. He