it was his fate. The game had been played, and he had lost.
There was one thing left undone, one play Conniston would still make,
if he were there. And he, too, would make it. It was no longer
necessary for him to give himself up to McDowell, for Kao was dead, and
Miriam Kirkstone was saved. It was still right and just for him to
fight for his life. But Mary Josephine must know FROM HIM. It was the
last square play he could make.

No one saw him as he made his way through alleys to the outskirts of
the town. A quarter of an hour later he came up the slope to the Shack.
It was lighted, and the curtains were raised to brighten his way up the
hill. Mary Josephine was waiting for him.

Again there came over him the strange and deadly calmness with which he
had met the tragedy of that night. He had tried to wipe the blood from
his face, but it was still there when he entered and faced Mary
Josephine. The wounds made by the razor-like nails of his assailants
were bleeding; he was hatless, his hair was disheveled, and his throat
and a part of his chest were bare where his clothes had been torn away.
As Mary Josephine came toward him, her arms reaching out to him, her
face dead white, he stretched out a restraining hand, and said,

"Please wait, Mary Josephine!"

Something stopped her--the strangeness of his voice, the terrible
hardness of his face, gray and blood-stained, the something appalling
and commanding in the way he had spoken. He passed her quickly on his
way to the telephone. Her lips moved; she tried to speak; one of her
hands went to her throat. He was calling Miriam Kirkstone's number! And
now she saw that his hands, too, were bleeding. There came the murmur
of a voice in the telephone. Someone answered. And then she heard him
say,

"SHAN TUNG IS DEAD!"

That was all. He hung up the receiver and turned toward her. With a
little cry she moved toward him.

"DERRY--DERRY--"

He evaded her and pointed to the big chair in front of the fireplace.
"Sit down, Mary Josephine."

She obeyed him. Her face was whiter than he had thought a living face
could be, And then, from the beginning to the end, he told her
everything. Mary Josephine made no sound, and in the big chair she
seemed to crumple smaller and smaller as he confessed the great lie to
her, from the hour Conniston and he had traded identities in the little
cabin on the Barren. Until he died he knew she would haunt him as he
saw her there for the last ti