new favourite had begun to exercise her influence. Such things are
done in the East--dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison or
bowstring used at will, to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for a
spendthrift's extravagances. Such things were done when that man was
Governor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman in India before
his time. He went there fettered by no prejudices--he was more Mussulman
than the Mussulmen themselves--a deeper, darker traitor. And it was to
hide such crimes as these--to interpose the great peacemaker Death
between him and the Government which was resolved upon punishing him--to
save the honour, the fortune of my son, and the children who were to
come after him, the name of a noble race, a name that was ever stainless
until he defiled it--it was for this great end I took steps to hide that
feeble, useless life of his from the world he had offended; it was for
this end that I caused a peasant to be buried in the vault of the
Maulevriers, with all the pomp and ceremony that befits the funeral of
one of England's oldest earls. I screened him from his enemies--I saved
him from the ignominy of a public trial--from the execration of his
countrymen. His only punishment was to eat his heart under this roof, in
luxurious seclusion, his comfort studied, his whims gratified so far as
they could be by the most faithful of servants. A light penance for the
dark infamies of his life in India, I think. His mind was all but gone
when he came here, but he had his rational intervals, and in these the
burden of his lonely life may have weighed heavily upon him. But it was
not such a heavy burden as I have borne--I, his gaoler, I who have
devoted my existence to the one task of guarding the family honour.'

He, whom she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk exhausted into a
chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himself
with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all the
while, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minutes
had restored him to the full possession of his reason had burnt itself
out, and his mind had relapsed into the condition in which it had been
when he talked to Mary in the garden.

'My pipe, Steadman,' he said, looking towards the door; 'bring me my
pipe,' and then, impatiently, 'What has become of Steadman? He has been
getting inattentive--very inattentive.'

He got up, and moved slowly to the door, leaning