? She seemed to think it sufficient light on
the subject to say:--"It was some length of time before I went back
home, Mo," and he had to press for particulars.

His conclusion, put briefly, was that this deserted wife, reappearing
at home with a wedding-ring after two years' absence, had decided that
she would fulfil her promise of silence best by giving a false married
name. She had engineered her mother's inspection of her marriage-lines,
so as to leave that good woman--a poor scholar--under the impression
that Daverill's name was Thornton; not a very difficult task. The name
she had chosen was Catchpole; and it still survived as an identifying
force, if called on. But it was seldom in evidence, "Aunt M'riar"
quashing its unwelcome individuality. The general feeling had been that
"Mrs. Catchpole" might be anybody, and did not recommend herself to the
understanding. There was some sort o' sense in "Aunt M'riar."

The eliciting of these points, hazily, was all Uncle Mo was equal to
after so long a colloquy, and Aunt M'riar was not in a condition to tell
more. She relit another half-candle that she had blown out for economy
when the talk set in, and called Uncle Mo's attention to the moribund
condition of his own:--"There's not another end in the house, Mo," said
she. So Uncle Mo had to use that one, or get to bed in the dark.

He had been already moved to heartfelt anger that day against this very
Daverill, having heard from his friend the Police-Inspector the story of
his arrest at The Pigeons, at Hammersmith; and, of course, of the
atrocious crime which had been his latest success with the opposite sex.
This Police-Inspector must have been Simeon Rowe, whom you may remember
as stroke-oar of the boat that was capsized there in the winter, when
Sergeant Ibbetson of the river-police met his death in the attempt to
capture Daverill. Uncle Mo's motive in visiting the police-station had
not been only to shake hands with the son of an old acquaintance. He had
carried what information he had of the escaped convict to those who were
responsible for his recapture.

* * * * *

If you turn back to the brief account the story gave of Maisie
Daverill's--or Prichard's--return to England, and her son's marriage,
and succeed in detecting in Polly the barmaid at the One Tun any trace
of the Aunt M'riar with whom you were already slightly acquainted, it
will be to the discredit of the narrator. For ne