ithout her actually seeing my face--not that it would have
mattered much, if she had.

"I thought it all over that night. I visualized readily enough what had
happened. Robert Turold, returning to England with some concocted story of
my death, had swept her off her feet, caught her on the rebound. He had
returned a prosperous man, and doubtless his love-making was reinforced by
Alice's worldly parents and the match-making old aunt. The combination was
a strong one, and I was supposed to be dead. So she married him, without
breathing a word to anybody of her previous secret marriage to me. I
realized that at once. She would be too afraid--left to herself. She would
tell herself that it wasn't worth while--that nobody need ever know now. I
could imagine her twisting her little hands together in apprehension as
she faced the problem--our secret--then gradually becoming calmer as
something whispered in her ear that it was her secret now, and need not be
told. You see, I knew her nature so well. There are many such
natures--gentle souls who shrink from responsibility in a world which,
sooner or later, generally sees to it that we are compelled to shoulder
the burden of our own acts.

"I was not long in making up my mind. I determined to do nothing. I take
no special credit to myself for that decision. The marriage with Robert
Turold was an accomplished fact, and my belated reappearance upon the
scene would have plunged her in unhappiness. She was about to become a
mother, too. That weighed with me. I loved her far too well to injure her
or her child. It meant letting Robert Turold go free if I remained dead,
but there are other things in life besides money and revenge. Fortunately
the position from the practical point of view was simplified by the death
of my only relative, my uncle, during my absence from England, who had
bequeathed his small property to me--not much, but sufficient for my own
simple needs.

"I took my uncle's name, the better to conceal my identity, and resumed
the medical studies which had been interrupted by my departure from
England four years before. When I received my degree I searched for a
remote spot where I was not likely to encounter any one who had known me
in my past life, and chose this lonely part of the Cornish coast. And here
I have remained for thirty years.

"They have not been unhappy years. It was not my disposition to waste my
life by hugging the illusions of the past. My days were