At the sound Marion's eyes opened. She looked up at me. I uttered a cry of agony and, throwing away my smoking weapon, I sank on my knees beside her. "Are you hurt?" she breathed. "No--no--but you--you are wounded--you are dying," I wailed. [Illustration: "Jussieu stood within the room, a black statue of horror." _First Person Paramount_] [_Page 318_] She gave me a most wonderful and tender smile. "For you," she gasped. "To save you! He would have killed you--but his bullet is--here." With a great effort she raised one hand and caught at her breast. "Oh, God! oh, God!" I groaned. "Marion, you will not die and leave me! Tell me what to do." "Kiss me," she whispered. But even as I stooped to obey, her spirit fled, and I kissed the lips of a corpse. No other kiss shall my lips know while I have life. At the fall of noon I carried her from the house of death and buried her in the grave which Sir Charles Venner had destined for us both. It was in the middle of a pine forest, and perhaps that is why the saddest sound on earth to my ears is still the sighing of pines. I left the bodies of my enemies where they had fallen--accursed carrion! I would not have touched them if I could. They were not discovered until more than a week had passed, and by then I was a thousand miles away, a desolate and broken-hearted wanderer on the face of the universe. Many years have passed and I am now a millionaire, accounted by the world a hard-headed, flinty-hearted financial magnate, and also something of a misogynist. But I have recorded these chapters of my history to show those who come after me, when I am dead, that, rascal as I was, and abandonedly selfish, I was yet capable of passion and of constancy, and that no deep-seated hatred of the softer sex has inspired the invincible solitariness of my life. FINIS. Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London. * * * * * * * Ward, Lock & Co.'s POPULAR FICTION STANLEY WEYMAN MY LADY ROTHA. A Romance of the Thirty Years War. The Saturday Review says:--"No one who begins will lay it down before the end, it is so extremely well carried on from adventure to adventure." ANTHONY HOPE COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP. The Speaker says:--"In this volume Mr. Hope is at his happiest in that particular department of fiction in which he reigns supreme." HALF A HERO. The Athenæum says:--"Mr. Hope's best story in point of construction and grasp of subject. His dialogue is virile and brisk." MR. WITT'S WIDOW. The Times says:--"In truth a brilliant tale." A. E. W. MASON LAWRENCE CLAVERING. SIR A. CONAN DOYLE A STUDY IN SCARLET. With a note on Sherlock Holmes by Dr. Joseph Bell. Illustrations by George Hutchinson. H. RIDER HAGGARD AYESHA. The Sequel to "She." Thirty-two full-page illustrations by Maurice Greiffenhagen. S. R. CROCKETT JOAN OF THE SWORD HAND.