eated, and although there is nothing but
darkness for me in the world, and although every deed I do leads me
further into the thick darkness, it shall be my work to unmask
villainy."

"Unmask villainy?" he said, as if in surprise, and then made a movement
towards the door.

"No," I said. "Think one minute before you call a servant. Let your
mind go back a few years. Remember a dark, wild night many years ago,
when you and your mistress were shipwrecked upon a rock on the northern
coast. Think of who saved you."

"It cannot be!" he said, staring amazedly at me.

"You did not like him, did you?" I said. "You cared more for the
younger brother, and played on the elder's trusting nature and helped
to get him away. You swore that a body which was washed on the shore
was his, although in your heart you knew it was not. You persecuted
your mistress by constantly trying to make her marry the man she did
not love, and on the tenth anniversary of his departure you appeared
armed with her father's will and drove her to the promise which killed
her."

He grew as pale as a sheet.

"You are Roger!" he gasped.

"I am Roger," I said.

"But what will you do?" he said, his face ashy pale.

"Do?" I cried. "I will destroy Ruth's destroyers, and then destroy
myself. I will sift your dealings to the bottom and then----"

"Stop, Roger," he cried; "stop! I have sinned, but I have also been
sinned against. I loved Ruth, ay, loved her like my own child; but
Wilfred got me into his power, and then, like the devil he was, he made
me do his will. Oh, I have suffered as well as you, more than you! He
found out the one weak place in my life, as he found out everything
else, and then he held me fast. Oh, I have waded through the blackest
slime for him. But for his power over me I should have scorned to do
what I did; I would have died before I would have taken advantage of
her loyalty to her father's slightest wish; and now----"

"Now, because you had no mercy on her or on me, I shall have no mercy
on you," I said. "Everything shall be made known, all your deeds shall
be dragged into the light of day."

"No, no, Roger; she would not have done that. She forgave me
everything, for at the last I confessed to her all that had been done.
She suffered terribly at your departure, and more, I believe at the
thought of wedding Wilfred, and yet she forgave me. Oh, I wish you had
seen her at the last, so calm, so patient, and so