to Strete Farm and presently, in the small
hours, awakened the farmer, showed myself stealing food and so
hastily departed.

Thus a few hours later, when Giuseppe goes for the milk, he hears of
the robbery, returns to "Crow's Nest" and describes a man that Ben
has no difficulty in recognizing as his brother, or Jenny as her
uncle. Robert Redmayne is on the war-path once more!

Of subsequent events, most are so familiar that there is no need to
retrace them. It is to be noted, however, that Robert does not
appear again to anybody but Jenny and Doria. In other words, he does
not appear again at all. His disguise is doffed--not to be resumed
until many months have passed, when once more he leaps out upon the
wild ranges of Griante. No. While alive enough and close enough to
impress both Bendigo and Brendon with his presence as described by
Jenny and myself, he has in reality vanished to the void. The
"forgery" again goes to sleep--as soundly as the real man in
Foggintor.

Accident, indeed, modified the original scheme and once more Chance
befriended us and enabled us to improve upon the first intention.

My tears fall when I think of my incomparable Jenny and her
astounding mastery of minutiae at "Crow's Nest"--her finesse and
exquisite touch, her kittenlike delicacy, her catlike swiftness and
sureness. The two beings involved were as children in her hands. Oh,
precious phoenix of a woman, you and I were of the same spirit,
kneaded into our clay! Through your father you won it--and I had it
from my mother--the primeval fire that burns through all obstacles
to its inveterate purpose!

I say that accident made a radical alteration of design vital, for I
had intended, on the night when Robert Redmayne would come and see
Bendigo, to murder the old sailor in his tower room and remove him
before morning with my wife's assistance. But the victim postponed
his own destruction, for upon the night when his death was intended,
during my previous conversation with him touching Jenny, I had
perceived, by his clumsy glances and evidence of anxiety, that
somebody else was in the tower room--unseen.

There was but one hiding-place and but one man likely to occupy it.
I did not indicate that I had discovered the secret and it was not
the detective who gave himself away; but, once alive to his
presence, I swiftly marked a flash of light at one of the little
ventilation holes in the cupboard and perceived that our sleuth
stood hid