Archie Weil and Daisy Fern were married in June. There was no need of waiting longer. It was a case of true love sanctified by suffering and devotion. The bright eyes and ruddy cheeks of the bride testified to her renewed health and spirits. The news of Hannibal's death—albeit it brought a tear to her eyes, had removed the only shadow that stretched across her pathway.

Shirley Roseleaf did not come to the wedding, to which he was the only invited guest. He wrote that an important mission from his magazine made it impossible to accept the invitation, but he sent a handsome present and a letter to Archie, congratulating him in the warmest manner.

For some time Lawrence Gouger had been urging the novelist to hasten the wonderful story that was to make his fortune and give a new impetus to the house of Cutt & Slashem. They had consulted together a hundred times, and the thirty chapters already finished seemed to leave but a few weeks' steady work to be accomplished. Shortly after the wedding Gouger went to Roseleaf's rooms, one evening, and begged him to lose no further time.

"What is there to wait for now?" he asked. "All the dramatic incidents have occurred. You only need to wind up with a glory of fireworks, showing virtue triumphant and vice buried under a North Carolina sycamore. Come, my dear boy, when may I expect to see the work completed?"

Roseleaf did not answer for some seconds.

"There is a part of this story that you do not comprehend," he said, finally. "A chapter is yet to be written at which you have not guessed."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the listener.

"Yes," nodded the other. "So far the character that is supposed to represent myself appears that of a heartless, cold, unfeeling wretch. Do you think I shall be satisfied to leave it that way?"

The critic stared at the speaker in astonishment.

"I—I do not understand," he replied.

"I thought not," said Roseleaf, soberly. "Well, this story, to be truthful, must do justice to the one who is supposed to personate its author. And, in the first place, to avoid all circumlocution, let me tell you there has never been a moment since I first loved Daisy Fern that she has not been the dearest thing on this earth to me!"

Mr. Gouger could not reconcile this statement with the events that had taken place, and his puzzled countenance said as much.

"I acted like a villain, did I not," continued Roseleaf, after a slight pause, "when the news was brought that she had disappeared? I seemed to have no faith in her, no confidence in Archie, no trust in that poor old man, her father. Why? I was so madly, insanely in love that every possible phantasy got possession of my excited brain. To lose her was to deprive me of all hope, all ambition, all care for life. So far, I acted my real self. If what I supposed true had been proven I think there would have been a murder. Not of Daisy; ah, no! but of the man who had robbed me of my treasure. Then I went to Midlands with Archie and I saw her. I heard her speak, and like a lightning flash it came to me. He was as honorable as a man could be and she cared more for him than for my unworthy self. She had contrasted us and discovered how much he was my superior. And I said to myself at that moment, 'I will give her up! If it costs me my happiness as long as I live I will give her up! No matter what happens, I will unite these people, who have been so faithful to me and toward whom I have acted the part of a cur and a coward!'"

The young man was speaking with perfect composure, but with intense earnestness.

"The first thing to be done," he continued, "was to take myself out of their way. The next was to unravel the mystery that had made the trouble. I knew, when my mind had resumed its natural state, that, whatever had occurred, Daisy was blameless. I knew that something far out of the common line had caused her to commit the act which had cast a blight over her reputation. For weeks I could find no clue. Then, one day, in the street, I saw Hannibal, the negro for whom she had borrowed my money and who I supposed was still in France. I cannot help the quick temper I have inherited, and I confess that the sight of that fellow aroused my suspicions against this girl, only they took a new and more horrible form.

"I remembered distinctly what a strong hold Hannibal had on the Fern family. I recalled, with frightful distinctness, the manner in which he attended Daisy at table, his interest in her health, the $1,000 she had given him, her quick movement to prevent my striking him when his answers insulted us both. Perhaps—but I will not dilate on the things that came to my distorted imagination. It was enough for me to put a detective on his track. I engaged Hazen, and in three days he came to tell me that a white woman had passed the night with Hannibal at a house on Seventh Avenue, the date corresponding with the one on which I was to have been married!"

Gouger listened spellbound. It seemed to him that the most exciting chapter of this weird tale was yet to be written.

"If I had lost control of my senses before," pursued Roseleaf, "what do you suppose happened when this information was brought to me? But then I found an excuse for my beloved one. I considered her the victim of one of those forms of hypnotism of which there can no longer be any doubt. She could not have gone there without the demoniac influence of a stronger personality. He had charmed her from her home by the exercise of diabolic arts. My fury was entirely for him. I sought him at once, only to learn that he had left the city a few days before, leaving absolutely no trace. I could not give over the hunt, however. If he was on the earth I must find him and be avenged for the wrong he had done. It occurred to me that an influence so strong as he had exerted would not be given up. Wherever the Ferns had gone, he would probably be found. I discovered the whereabouts of the family, after a great deal of effort, and went to North Carolina. With the patience of a dog and the cunning of a fox I laid in wait for weeks, and one night I saw and heard Daisy Fern and Hannibal in conversation!"

There was no movement on the part of the critic. He sat as still as a block of stone.

"When they began to speak I could have sworn that my recent guesses were correct ones. It was at about the hour of midnight, and she had crept quietly and alone out of her house to meet this African. But the first dozen sentences that were uttered gave me a new version of the affair. It was by no mesmeric power, but by a threat of injury to her father that this fellow held her under bond. I learned that Mr. Fern had done something—I could not then tell what—which rendered him liable to imprisonment. I learned, also, beyond question—for they spoke without restraint, supposing themselves alone—that, whatever the purpose of Hannibal when Daisy came to his rooms on the day she was to have been married, it had not been accomplished. She was afraid of him, but only for her father's sake. And I discovered beside, though not with perfect clearness, that a promise of secrecy accounted for her refusal to explain the cause of that absence which had altered the whole course of our lives.

"I have said I had watched with patience. I determined to continue my watch till I understood the entire situation. About once a week they met in the way I have described, and as the next date was always arranged in my hearing there was no difficulty in my keeping the appointment. In the meantime I learned that Hannibal was born in the vicinity, that he was living a hermit life, and that nobody knew of the surreptitious visits he was paying to Oakhurst. Then one day I heard that Archie was at the hotel, and thinking it time that I let him into the secret I went there, pretending I had just arrived from the north, when in reality I had been boarding for months five miles away. The rest you know. I was enabled to prove to him as well as to myself what had actually happened. Since then justice has been done to us all."

Mr. Gouger had to speak at last.

"To you?" he asked. "Do you admit that all this is just to you?"

"Without doubt," said Roseleaf. "I forfeited every right to the woman I had insulted by my suspicions. There are certain metals that can only be tried by fire. I was placed in the crucible, and found wanting."

The critic shook his head sagely.

"You are a regular Roman father to your own delinquencies," he answered. "But tell me another thing. Would you have shot Hannibal if Mr. Weil and Miss Fern had not made their appearance?"

"I have not the least doubt of it. He was in my eyes at that moment a crawling adder, whose fangs were liable to penetrate the flesh of some one if he was not put out of the way. But I am more than glad I was spared the infliction of his punishment."

Gouger wore a strange look.

"And yet he had one most human quality," said he.

"Yes, I admit that now," was the reply. "In his passionate, barbaric way, he certainly loved. When I revise my novel I shall try to deal fairly with him."

"And you will finish it very soon now?"

"As soon as possible."

A month later Lawrence Gouger received at his office a package marked on the outside, "From Shirley Roseleaf." He could hardly control his excitement until he had untied the strings, taken off the wrappings and disclosed the tin box inside. It was a square box, just the right size for manuscript paper such as he had seen Roseleaf use, and the heart of the enthusiast beat high as he took it in his hands. A jewel case filled with the costliest stones would not have seemed to him more precious. The fame of a new author would soon resound through the world! Cutt & Slashem would have the greatest work of fiction of recent years in their next catalogue! And he, Lawrence Gouger, would be given the credit of discovering—one might almost say of inventing—this wonder!

Opening the box, the critic looked at its contents and then dropped it with an exclamation. It contained nothing but a small sealed envelope and a heap of ashes!

Ashes! Ashes made from recently burned paper!

When he recovered enough to open the envelope, this note was found within:

"The idiot!" cried the reader, as he finished perusing this letter. "The imbecile! Was there ever such a fool born on this earth!"

Then he apostrophised the heap of ashes that lay in the box before him.

"There never was and never will be so great a work of fiction as you were yesterday! And yet a little touch of flame, and all was extinguished! How like you were to man! Let him have the brain of a Shakespeare, and a pound weight falling on his skull ends everything.

"There was a flood in Hungary last week, in which a thousand people were drowned. There was an earthquake in Peru where five hundred perished. A vessel went down off the Caroline Islands. Taken all together, they did not equal to this world your loss.

"The poet knew what he was saying: 'Great wits are sure to madness near allied.' Oh, to think that a mind that could execute your thrilling pages knew no more than to destroy them!

"I will not cast you, sublime ashes, to the winds of heaven! I will keep you reverently, as one preserves the cloak of a great man, or the bones of a mastodon. Behold, I close you again in your covers, where the eye of no mortal shall henceforth behold you."

With the words the disappointed critic performed the action. And to this day visitors to his room read with wonder the inscription he has placed on the box:

"The greatest novel that ever was written."

THE END.