whence she had come, there to join her life in time with one Arkel, the father of the lad who but a few short weeks ago died--I to the far-away land chosen for my exile. But she, the flower of flowers, still remembered our love. She avenged our parting; for she wrecked the life of him who had parted us. She came between him and his love. She ruined him--devastated his life so that he was stricken with disease of the brain, and suffered some of the tortures which I too have suffered." "But much of this is ancient history to me," interrupted the Major. "Get on to the gist of the thing." "May I not tell the story of my life in my own way? To Australia then I went, and there for a score of years I stayed. And as with time the wound in my heart healed I married, and children were born to me. Then death came, and my wife was taken from me, and I put the past behind me and returned to this land. But in that whence I had come I had found a way to Paradise--a way to drown the past and revel in the present. I had learned to love the poppy. It became the emblem of my later life--the anodyne of every sorrow. I sought it here, for life without opium was no longer possible. I found it at the hands of one Mother Mandarin----" "What, you too, then, know that old hag!" "Beneath her roof I have dreamed the sweetest dreams, beside her--a very Jezebel--I dwelt for long in Paradise. But now I am in Hell. They chase me constantly, relentlessly. But so far They have not caught me. Horror! when they do! Your uncle, too, loved his opium. We met there, and I came to understand him more. Twin sister to his love for opium was his love for crime. He had a passion for its mysteries, and lacked only the courage of a past master. He probed in the depths--together we probed in the depths--he paying me. I was a seeker of criminals for him. It was my work to hunt them out and bring them to him as to one who was an appreciator. For the fulfilling of my task he paid me three hundred pounds a year. He used to say he longed to kill--to be a spiller of human blood." "Man--you're mad!" "Small wonder if I were--but I am not. These things that I tell you are true, friend. Your uncle was the criminal's comrade. He sheltered him and paid large sums of money to his kind. I was his tool in this as all through life. At Lesser Thorpe I used to visit him. I was there that Christmas night when Nemesis o'ertook him, and he met with death at the hand of one of those whom he so sought. No soul knew I was there. But I knew all--of Miriam Crane--of Jabez Crane--of Gerald Arkel, aye, and of yourself. For I had been set my task and had fulfilled it, and the secret of Miriam Crane's past life was in my keeping and in my master's. I knew her brother for a murderer--he had killed a sergeant in your regiment." "I know--I know all about that--go on."