Remember me as I was once
on a time, and so I shall always be--Yours,"

"Jack."

That is the end of the tale [concluded Otway], except for this--

Twelve months later, being on leave and wanting to clear up the
mystery of the newspaper report, I took a train down to C--, past
Gravesend, made inquiries of the police, and finally hunted up the
juryman who had shown so much emotion at the inquest. I found a
little whiskered grocer, weighing out margarine in a shed that was
half shop, half canteen. All I extracted from him was this--

"Yes, to be sure, sir, I remember it perfectly. I only wish I
didn't: for I dream of it at night: and, being a widower, I can't
confide the trouble. The fact is, I must suffer from nerves and--
what do they call 'em, sir?--hallucinations--yes, that's the word.
But I was fresh from inspecting the body, and when that person broke
in, wearing a face like the corpse's twin-brother, well, it knocked
me clean out. Of course, it must have been a hallucination; none of
the others saw the least resemblance--as they've told me since.
But at the moment, I'd have wagered my life. . . ."

EPILOGUE.

"Yes, that is the story," said Otway, sorting back the documents into
his dispatch-case.

"Is it quite all the story, sir?" asked Polkinghorne, breaking the
silence that followed its close.

Otway frowned, re-sorted the last three or four papers, laid them in
the case and closed it with a couple of snaps.

"That's all," he answered, "that exists for publication. That is,
unless you want a moral. I can give you _that_, all right: and if
you have any use for it you may apply it to this blasted War.
As I see it, the more you beat Fritz by becoming like him, the more
he has won. You may ride through his gates under an Arch of Triumph;
but if he or his ghost sits on your saddle-bow, what's the use?
You have demeaned yourself to him; you cannot shake him off, for his
claws hook in you, and through the farther gate of Judgment you ride
on, inseparables condemned.

"--And, oh, by the by! I am taking my leave next Wednesday.
Sammy has been nosing suspiciously, these five days, around a
wine-case which on the 22nd he shall have the honour of opening.
It contains, if our friend the Transport Officer hasn't been
beforehand with you, some Pommery 1900; with which you are to do your
best. For it turns out that, with luck, I am to be married on tha