sed that I went on a good long drunk.
But when I got straight again I found a handsome cheque awaiting me and
the hope, very warmly expressed by the way, that I would let him, the
editor, have many more in the same vein. Many more, mind you, with
cheques to match, so long as my industry holds out and I can find
enough to say. Now consider for a moment what that signifies to a man
like me, fallen so low, I confess it, ostracized and exiled, cut off
from all old associations and without hope of overcoming my fault
sufficiently to enable me to make a fresh start. It meant not only
money, but employment, and congenial employment. It meant that after
all, these years of leanness have not been wasted, that I have
something to say if I can only retain the knack, the trick, of saying
it in the way people will like, the public like. This alone would be
much, but with it goes, you see, some money, so, as I said, one thing
brings another; and money after all, Pauline, is what many a man as
lost as I am mostly requires. It isn't as if I'd _had_ money,
squandered it and lost it; I never had it--I never had it."

He paused, and for a moment there had sounded that high dangerous ring
in his voice she knew so well, and Miss Clairville drew her hands away.

"But that was not all," she said coldly. "You spoke of something else,
of two things that had happened. What was the other?"

"The second grew out of the first, out of what I have told you. The
poems--they were a couple of ranch episodes,--I'll let you see them
presently--were signed by my full name, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree. I never
supposed any one I knew would see them, or seeing them trouble their
heads about the writer; in fact, I never thought about the matter. But
somebody did see them and did remember me, and did take the trouble to
find out who I was, and where I was, and I've had within the last
fortnight two letters from a well known firm of lawyers in London
informing me that I am without doubt the man they have been searching
for during the past year, and that quite a respectable little fortune
awaits me. There have been a few deaths in the family; I am next of
kin and so that's all there is about it. Simple as you like, but true
beyond a doubt, and so I thought I'd celebrate the event to-night with
you, Pauline, and perhaps confer with you--you woman of the world, with
your knowledge of life and of me--of me, alas! Me at my worst,
Pauline, but let us hope r