ught, she turned and went into the sitting-room.

"What is all this, Bessie?" said her uncle, following her. "What does
the man mean about Frank Muller?"

"It means, uncle dear," she said at last, in a voice that was something
between a sob and a laugh, "that I am a widow before I am married. John
is dead!"

"Dead! dead!" said the old man, putting his hand to his forehead and
turning round in a dazed sort of fashion, "John dead!"

"Read the letter," said Bessie, handing him Frank Muller's missive.

The old man took and read it. His hand shook so much that he was a long
while in mastering its contents.

"Good God!" he said at last, "what a blow! My poor Bessie," and he
drew her into his arms and kissed her. Suddenly a thought struck him.
"Perhaps it is all one of Frank Muller's lies," he said, "or perhaps he
made a mistake."

But Bessie did not answer. For the time, at any rate, hope had left her.

CHAPTER XXVI

FRANK MULLER'S FAMILIAR

The study of the conflicting elements which go to make up a character
like that of Frank Muller, however fascinating it might prove, is not
one which can be attempted in detail here. Such a character in its
developed form is fortunately well-nigh impossible in a highly civilised
country, for the dead weight of the law would crush it back to the level
of the human mass around it. But those who have lived in the wild places
of the earth will be acquainted with its prototypes, more especially
in the countries where a handful of a superior race rule over the dense
thousands of an inferior. Solitudes are favourable to the production of
strongly marked individualities. The companionship of highly developed
men, on the contrary, whittles individualities away; the difference
between their growth being the difference between the grown of a tree on
a plain and a tree in the forest. On the plain the tree takes the innate
bend of its nature. It springs in majesty towards the skies; it spreads
itself around, or it slants along the earth, just as Nature intended
that it should, and in accordance with the power of the providential
breath which bends it. In the forest it is different. There the tree
grows towards the light wherever the light may be. Forced to modify its
natural habit in obedience to the pressure of circumstances over which
it has no command, it takes such form and height as its neighbours will
allow it to, all its energies being directed to the preservation of its
life in