es
because of a brother's stipulation and a certain English law. With them
they had existed in mutual discontent and dislike. Derwent, when he
became old enough, had stepped over the traces. All this Keith had
gathered from the letters, but there was a great deal that was missing.
Egbert, he gathered, must have been a scapegrace. He was a cripple of
some sort and seven or eight years his junior. In the letters Mary
Josephine had spoken of him as "poor Egbert," pitying instead of
condemning him, though it was Egbert who had brought tragedy and
separation upon them. One night Egbert had broken open the Conniston
safe and in the darkness had had a fight and a narrow escape from his
uncle, who laid the crime upon Derwent. And Derwent, in whom Egbert
must have confided, had fled to America that the cripple might be
saved, with the promise that some day he would send for Mary Josephine.
He was followed by the uncle's threat that if he ever returned to
England, he would be jailed. Not long afterward "poor Egbert" was found
dead in bed, fearfully contorted. Keith guessed there had been
something mentally as well as physically wrong with him.

"--And I was going to send for you," he said, as they came to the level
of the valley. "My plans were made, and I was going to send for you,
when this came."

He stopped, and in a few tense, breathless moments Mary Josephine read
the ninth and last letter he had taken from the Englishman's chest. It
was from her uncle. In a dozen lines it stated that she, Mary
Josephine, was dead, and it reiterated the threat against Derwent
Conniston should he ever dare to return to England.

A choking cry came to her lips. "And that--THAT was it?"

"Yes, that--and the hurt in my head," he said, remembering the part he
must play. "They came at about the same time, and the two of them must
have put the grain of sand in my brain."

It was hard to lie now, looking straight into her face that had gone
suddenly white, and with her wonderful eyes burning deep into his soul.

She did not seem, for an instant, to hear his voice or sense his words.
"I understand now," she was saying, the letter crumpling in her
fingers. "I was sick for almost a year, Derry. They thought I was going
to die. He must have written it then, and they destroyed my letters to
you, and when I was better they told me you were dead, and then I
didn't write any more. And I wanted to die. And then, almost a year
ago, Colonel Reppington