"Aw donno, but t'lahd's cawd Mawnta Nehgull."

"O my God!" cried the detective, as he fell back in his chair, and
seemed to lose all power of speech.

"Come away, Nash," said the Squire, taking one arm of the stricken man,
while Mr. Errol, handing his notes to the lawyer, took the other. They
led him tenderly to the office, where Carruthers forced a glass of wine
upon him. Nash revived, and begged that the door might be closed and
locked.

"I may never have a chance to tell this again, so I want to tell it to
you two, and to you alone. My real name is Nagle, not Nash. I was born
in Hamilton, where my father was a wheelwright. I got a good schooling,
and went into a lawyer's office, for father wanted me to become a
lawyer. But I got reading detective books, and did a few sharp things
for the firm that got me into notice and brought me private detective
business. So I got on till I rose to be what I am, such as it is. When
my parents died they left my sister Matilda in my care. I was only
twenty then, and she, eighteen, a bright, pretty girl. She kept my rooms
for me, but I was away most of the time, so she became tired of it, as
we had no relations and hardly any friends we cared to associate with.
She insisted on leaving me and learning the millinery in Toronto; so I
had to let her go. I saw her often, and frequently sent her money. She
got good wages at last and dressed well, and seemed to have respectable
people about her. Suddenly her letters stopped. I went to her place of
business, and heard that she had left to be married to a rich man in the
country; but nobody, not even her closest acquaintances among the girls,
knew where, or who the man was. I advertised, neglected business to hunt
up every clue, travelled all over the country looking for my lost
sister, promised my dead parents never to marry till I found her. And at
last, at last, O God! I have found Matilda, and you know where, a woman
without name or character, the victim of the greatest scoundrel unhung,
the associate of brutal criminals, the unlawful mother of an idiot boy!
No! no more wine, Squire, not a drop. I want a steady head and a strong
hand this morning more than any day of my life. Open the door and the
windows now, please; and give me a little air."

Nash, for so he may still be called, sent Coristine away to Talfourd's
for his bundle, and Miss Du Plessis, having handed the note for Rawdon
to the dominie, accompanied the hero of the glove