Carpentaria bent over the old woman, as if to search ‘her eyes and find some kindness there.

And it seemed to him, indeed, that the character of her gaze had somewhat changed, though those brilliant orbs, famous in Torquay fifty years ago for their splendour, showed no trace of humidity.

Carpentaria himself was moved. It would have been impossible for anyone, least of all an artist of romantic instincts such as he, to listen to Jetsam’s recital without emotion. And now, when the narrative was finished, Jetsam sat silent and preoccupied, the figure of grief and of failure. One felt, in observing him, the immense tragedy of his life—a life which would not have been a tragedy, but merely a little slice of the commonplace, had he not by chance learned the sinister secret of his origin. One understood how the discovery of that secret had completely changed his view of existence, how it had filled him with ideas of frantic hope, frantic revenge, and frantic regret at the long drab irrecoverable years which the past had swallowed up. One penetrated, as it were, into his brain, and watched how he was continually contrasting what his career actually had been with what it might have been—with what it would have been but for the ruthless action of the woman on the bed.

And then there was the burly, smitten figure of Josephus Ilam, too, equally pathetic in its way. For love of this strong, heavy man, who once had been a little boy in a sailor suit standing on Exeter platform, the woman on the bed had committed a crime which was certainly worse than murder. She had made one life and she had marred another. And now she herself was stricken, withered, about to appear before the ultimate tribunal. It was incontrovertible that, if she had sinned, she had sinned magnificently, in the grand manner.

Carpentaria glanced at the two men, and then back again at the aged mother.

“I understand, Mrs. Ilam,” he began in a voice strangely soft and persuasive, “that you can indicate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by a slight movement. Miss Dartmouth told me the other day. Is this so? I entreat you to answer me.”

With a sudden jerk Josephus Ilam rose from his chair and rushed to the bedside.

“Answer him, mother.”

Mother and son exchanged a long gaze, and then Mrs. Ilam’s eyelids blinked. It was the affirmative sign.

“Thank you,” said Carpentaria simply. “Now it seems to me, if you are not too tired, that we can quite easily carry on a conversation upon this basis. It will be slow, but it will be none the less sure. By successively choosing letters out of the alphabet you can make up words, and so form sentences. You can choose the letters thus: I will run through the alphabet, and when I come to the letter you want, you will blink. Do you comprehend my scheme?”

The eyes blinked.

“And are you willing to try it?”

There was a considerable pause, but in the end the eyes blinked.

“Very good,” said Carpentaria. “Now, quite probably you will want to begin with the letter ‘I,’ eh?”

The eyes blinked.

“Excellent! Your first word is ‘I.’ Let us go to the next word. A, B, C, D————”

At “D” the eyes blinked again.

With infinite patience, Carpentaria continued to help Mrs. Ilam to express herself, and though that mouth was incapable of speech and those hands would never write again, the woman transmitted her first thought to the outer world, and it went thus:

“I do not regret.”

There was something terrible, something majestic, in that unrepentant enunciation. It illustrated the remorseless character of the aged creature, whose spirit nothing apparently could conquer. Josephus Ilam moved away from the bed and hovered uncertainly between the dressing-table and the window. Jetsam got up from his chair and, taking Ilam’s place, examined the features of the woman who had ruined his life and cheated him out of all that was his. And even Jetsam could not forbear an admiring exclamation.

“You are tremendous,” he murmured. “I could almost like you.”

Carpentaria waved him aside.

“Has Mr. Jetsam told us the truth, dear madam?” he interrogated her.

And the eyes blinked. It was as though they blinked joyously, defiantly.

“Do you agree that restitution should be made, so far as restitution is possible?” Carpentaria asked.

There was no movement of the eyelids.

“You object to restitution, even now?”

Still there was no movement of the eyelids. But Josephus Ilam’s legs could be heard shuffling on the floor.

“You wish to speak, then? A, B, C, D—————”

Carpentaria went on to “W” before Mrs. Ilam signified that the sentence was to commence. The words ran:

“Why named Jetsam?”

The woman’s mind was evidently exploring, in a sort of indifferent curiosity, the side-issues, the minor scenes, of the terrific drama which she had started and of which she now witnessed the climax.

She appeared to have no sense at all of her own responsibility.

“It was a name I gave myself when I first found out who I was,” said Jetsam bitterly. “Something chucked overboard and forgotten, you see.”

A slight smile seemed to illuminate the woman’s face.

“Do you agree that restitution should be made?” Carpentaria repeated patiently.

The eyes of the paralytic made no sign until Carpentaria began again to go through the alphabet. Then, letter by letter, the message came:

“If my son wishes.”

“Mother,” Ilam murmured, averting his face from the bed, “of course I wish. I nearly killed him myself the other day. You thought I had been dreaming—till you saw him yourself, and, and——”

He stopped; he broke down.

And then Mrs. Ilam proceeded, with Carpentaria’s help:

“My son must tell me about that.”

“No,” Jetsam put in authoritatively; “I will tell you about that. Ilam—or rather I should say Kilmarnock—is in no condition to make speeches. When I first came to this place to begin my struggle for what was mine, I really had not got much of a plan in my head. It was so difficult to make a start. It may seem to you quite a simple thing”—he turned away from Mrs. Ilam and addressed Carpentaria—“to go up to a person and say to him, ‘Look here, you are standing in my shoes, and your mother has committed an act foully criminal!’ But in practice it isn’t quite as easy as it seems. You want a gigantic nerve to make a statement like that as if you meant it—although you do mean it. It sounds rather wild, you see. And then I met my supplanter rather before I was ready for him. The truth is that he came into that little place where I was hiding in just the same way as you came in, Mr. Carpentaria. He caught me like you did—a trespasser; and, of course, I was at a disadvantage. He spoke to me very roughly, and then angered me——”

“How could I know who you were?” demanded Ilam.

“Exactly. You couldn’t know. But the effect on me was the same. Put yourself in my place, Mr. Kilmarnock. I had been cheated out of my whole career. You were in unlawful possession of it; and on the top of that you came along, and behaved to me as if I were a dog. Well”—here Jetsam addressed his stepmother again—“I told him who I was, and pretty quick too, and I could see from his manner that he knew the history of our origin, and the substitution on Exeter platform.”

“I knew,” Ilam admitted with a certain sadness. “My mother had once told me—I came across traces of a mystery, and she told me.”

“And you did nothing?” queried Jetsam. “It was not on your conscience?”

“You must recollect that we had the legal proof of your death. What was there to be done? I could not have made restitution to the dead, even had my mother permitted.”

“But when I told you who I was,” rejoined Mr. Jetsam, “unless I am much mistaken, you believed what I said.”

“I did,” Ilam agreed. “Moreover, you bear a most distinct likeness to a portrait of my stepfather, painted when he was about your age.”

“You believed me, and your answer was to try to kill me?” Jetsam sneered.

The two men, the son and the stepson, were now opposite to one another, on either side of the bed, while Carpentaria, intently listening, stood at the foot.

“I did not try to kill you,” answered Ilam.

“You pretty nearly succeeded,” said Jetsam.

“I thought I had killed you,” Ilam said gravely. “But I had no intention of doing so. You said something very scathing about my mother——”

“I said nothing that was not justified.”

“You insulted my mother. I lost my temper. I hated you. We always hate those whom we have wronged. I struck you. You fell, and you must have knocked your head against the pile of planks lying in the enclosure; you never moved. I examined you. I could have sworn you were dead—I was afraid—I thought of inquests. I knew the whole truth would come out. I had not meant to kill. So I took you and buried you temporarily, while I considered what I should do afterwards. I went back to the house and told my mother. She would not believe me. She thought I had been dreaming. I do frequently have bad nightmares. And certain things that occurred afterwards made even me suspect that after all I had been dreaming. It was not until you came again that I——”

“And even your mother believed then, eh?” said Jetsam. “Your mother believed too suddenly. She saw me and she believed! And the result was paralysis! I ought to have broken it to her more gently. That would have been perhaps better for all of us—perhaps better!”

There was a pause. And Jetsam added, as if communing with himself:

“How she hated me! How she hates me still! even to-night, if some one had not interfered in time——”

He could not get away from the amazing tenacity of Mrs. Ilam’s purpose.

“You wish to speak?” said Carpentaria, who had been observing the woman’s eyes; the eyes were blinking nervously.

He began the alphabet again, and her message ran thus:

“I do not hate him; but I love my son. To-night I thought Josephus was in danger. That was why—revolver. I always acted for my son. I love him!”

These sentiments, so unmistakably clear in their significance, took some time to transmit. Mrs. Ilam appeared to be exhausted. But after a few moments she continued:

“Where is Rosie? She helped him. I want to know why.”

The men exchanged glances.

“Why did she help you?” Carpentaria asked of Jetsam.

“Better ask her!” replied Jetsam curtly.

Carpentaria did not hesitate an instant. He went to the door, opened it, and called Rosie, and his voice resounded through the well of the staircase and the empty rooms. And then Rosie came from; downstairs, like an apparition. She had been crying.

“Mrs. Ilam wants you to explain why you have been helping Mr. Jetsam,” said Carpentaria, as she entered.

“Helping him in what?” Rosie parleyed timidly.

“In his plans——”

“Against me,” Ilam added.

“I only helped him in his plans for justice,” said Rosie.

“But why?”

“Because I was sorry for him. Because there is something in his tone—because—oh! if he has told you all, are you not all sorry for him? When I think of what his life has been——”

She stopped and burst into tears.

“But my hair is grey,” murmured Jetsam. “How can you possibly be interested in me? What does it matter what happens to me? My life is over.”

“No it isn’t!” Rosie protested. “It hasn’t yet begun. It is just beginning. Mrs. Ilam and Cousin Ilam will be just to you. You will not bear them ill-will. The wrong is too old for that. You will forget it. You will forget all the past. Your hair may be grey, but I’m sure your heart isn’t. And your voice can influence even the Soudanese. The way that man obeyed you! The way he got the better of his brother just to please you! It seems strange, but I can understand it, because I have——”

Again she stopped.

Jetsam went up to her and took her hand, which she seemed willingly to release to him. And he held it.

“How good you are!” he said steadily. “I am almost ashamed to have roused your sympathy so much.”

The other two men watched.

“I don’t know what Pauline will say,” Rosie stammered.

Suddenly there was the sound of music. The band, which everybody in the room had forgotten, had begun to play, apparently of its own accord. And the melody it had chosen was, “See the Conquering Hero Comes.”

Carpentaria rushed to the window. And then, as he drew the curtains, all noticed for the first time that the dawn had begun.

“What are you making that noise for?” he demanded angrily from the balcony. The music ceased abruptly.

“We’re saluting the sun, sir,” came the reply. “It’s morning. We imagined that possibly you had lost sight of the fact of our existence.”

“I had,” said Carpentaria. “However, you can go!”

“Mr. Carpentaria,” cried another voice—a woman’s, firm and imperious. “Open the front door immediately and let me in. I insist.”

It was Pauline.

“Certainly, Miss Dartmouth,” said Carpentaria obediently. “Kindly cut the rope which you will see tied to the handle. I will tell the Soudanese to admit you.”

And he did so.

And presently footsteps were heard on the stairs, and both Pauline and Juliette came in.

“Rosie!” exclaimed Pauline. The sisters were clasped in each other’s arms.

“Forgive me, dearest!” Rosie entreated; and they kissed.

“But what have you——?” Pauline began, naturally mystified to the utmost.

“Ah, Miss Dartmouth,” said Carpentaria, “I fear you must wait for enlightenment until you can hear the whole story.”

“But the servants?” cried Pauline.

“I sent them to sleep in the staff-dormitories. I said you wished it,” answered Rosie, smiling.

“But why should I wish it?”

“I don’t know,” said Rosie. “When they asked me that, I told them I didn’t know,” she smiled again faintly. “But Mr. Jetsam will explain it all to you. I—I tried to help him, and I have succeeded—I think.”

During this conversation, Juliette, with that direct candour which frequently distinguishes women in a crisis, had gone straight to Josephus Ilam and seized his hand. She was assuring herself that he was not hurt, when Mrs. Ilam once more gave a sign with her eyelids. Carpentaria resumed his position as helper.

“It was because I loved him,” Carpentaria spelt out for her, “that I tried to kill you—twice.”

Carpentaria fell back. Then he regained his self-command and, pushing his fingers through his red-gold hair, he asked monosyllabically, “Why?”

And then he interpreted for her the answer to his own question.

“You worried Josephus. He wanted to get rid of you.”

Josephus disengaged his hands from those of Juliette.

“Mother!” he moaned sadly, and then added, “She is mad!”

But through Carpentaria Mrs. Ilam said:

“I am not mad. But my love has always been too strong.”

“Did you know of this, Ilam?” Carpentaria asked his partner solemnly.

“Of course I did not,” was the answer—“not till it was too late.”

“Then, why did you warn me up in the wheel?”

“Because I suspected. I suspected my poor mother was beginning to hate you, and I feared that—— I can’t say any more.”

Carpentaria, powerfully moved, walked out of the room, and it was Pauline who followed him.

Mrs. Ilam’s eyes were now shut.