dread which she
could not help showing. She knew now that this cruel man would always
hold his knowledge over her head, torturing her with the threat of
making it known to her husband.

Some hours after he had gone home, she followed him there to beg him not
to tell her husband what he had discovered. But all was dark in the
lawyer's house. She rang the private bell twice, but there was no
answer, and she returned in despair.

By a coincidence some one else had been seen to call at Mr.
Tulkinghorn's that same night. This was Mr. George, of the
shooting-gallery, who came to get back the letter he had loaned to the
lawyer.

When morning came it was found that a dreadful deed had been done that
night. Mr. Tulkinghorn was found lying dead on the floor of his private
apartment, shot through the heart. All the secrets he had so cunningly
discovered and gloated over with such delight had not been able to save
his life there in that room.

Mr. Tulkinghorn was so well-known that the murder made a great
sensation. The police went at once to the shooting-gallery to arrest Mr.
George and he was put into jail.

He was able later to prove his innocence, however, and, all in all, his
arrest turned out to be a fortunate thing. For by means of it old Mrs.
Rouncewell, Lady Dedlock's housekeeper, discovered that he was her own
son George, who had gone off to be a soldier so many years before. He
had made up his mind not to return till he was prospering. But somehow
this time had never come; bad fortune had followed him and he had been
ashamed to go back.

But though he had acted so wrongly he had never lost his love for his
mother, and was glad to give up the shooting-gallery and go with Mrs.
Rouncewell to become Sir Leicester's personal attendant.

At first, after the death of Mr. Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock had hoped
that her dread and fear were now ended, but she soon found that this was
not to be. The telltale bundle of letters was in the possession of a
detective whom the cruel lawyer had long ago called to his aid, and the
detective, thinking Lady Dedlock herself might have had something to do
with the murder, thought it his duty to tell all that his dead employer
had discovered to Sir Leicester.

It was a fearful shock to the haughty baronet to find so many tongues
had been busy with the name his wife had borne so proudly. When the
detective finished, Sir Leicester fell unconscious, and when he came to
his senses had lost