thing, I had seen where
her pistol was pointed. Why disturb her then? Nor did I return
upstairs. I had small interest now in anything but my own escape
from a situation more or less compromising.

"Do you blame me for this? I was her heir and I was where I had no
legal right to be. Do you think that I was called upon to publish
my shame and tell how I lingered there while my own niece shot
herself before my eyes? That shot made me a millionaire. This
certainly was excitement enough for one day--besides, I did not
leave her there neglected. I notified you later--after I had got
my breath and had found some excuse. That wasn't enough? Ah, I
see that you are all models of courage and magnanimity. You would
have laid yourselves open to every reproach rather than let a
little necessary perjury pass your lips. But I am no model. I
am simply an old man who has been too hardly dealt with for seventy
long years to possess every virtue. I made a mistake--I see it
now--trusted a dog when I shouldn't--but if Rudge had not seen
ghosts--well, what now?"

We had, one and all, with an involuntary impulse, turned our backs
upon him.

"What are you doing?" he hotly demanded.

"Only what all Washington will do to-morrow, and afterwards the
whole world," gravely returned the major. Then, as an ejaculation
escaped the astonished millionaire, he impressively added: "A
perjury which allows an innocent man and woman to remain under the
suspicion of murder for five weeks is one which not only the law
has a right to punish, but which all society will condemn.
Henceforth you will find yourself under a ban, Mr. Moore."[1]

My story ends here. The matter never came before the grand jury.
Suicide had been proved, and there the affair rested. Of myself it
is enough to add that I sometimes call in Durbin to help me in a
big case.

[1] Time amply verified this prophecy. Mr. Moore is living in great
style in the Moore house, and drives horses which are conspicuous
even in Washington. But no one accepts his invitations, and he is
as much of a recluse in his present mansion as he ever was in the
humble cottage in which his days of penury were spent.

XXVII

"YOU HAVE COME! YOU HAVE SOUGHT ME!"

These are some words from a letter written a few months after the
foregoing by one Mrs. Edward Truscott to a friend in New York:

"Edinburgh, May 7th, 1900.

"Dear Louisa:--You have always accused me of seeing more and