"In the joy with which you and Miss Dallas hailed the appearance of the man whom you thought dead, I was--for the time being--quite forgotten; and very naturally too. Profiting by the occasion, I left the room and went to the bedroom where Mr. Sarby lay in a trance, similar to that into which Mr. Alymer had fallen, both trances being caused by the poison of the devil-stick. As you have learned from his own lips, I revived him, as I revived his friend; so now, my good Jen, you have your two boys with you again, alive and well. The comedy is finished; and was I not right in denying to these past events the misleading name of tragedy? "Naturally, you wish to know how the dead came to be alive, and for what reason I behaved as I did. Well, here you shall find the whole explanation, so fully given that there will be no necessity for you to seek me at Deanminster. Indeed, if you do so, you will not find me, as by the time you receive this letter I shall be well on my way to London. Thence it is my intention to go abroad, and--as I told you at our last meeting--you will never see me again. When you finish this letter, you will, no doubt, be glad of this; and it is just as well that I should remain beyond your reach. You are a virtuous man, I am not--but our natures would prevent our ever assimilating, the one with the other. As to my promised explanation, here it is, and much good may it do you. "I am--as you know--a physician, but I am also what you may not know--a man of genius. I have brains, but no money; and for experiments in chemistry, money, I regret to say, is extremely necessary. This being the case, I have needed money, and that in large quantities, all my life. As I could not make it for myself--not having the mercantile instinct--I resolved to gain it by making a rich marriage. For many years I have traveled the world. Like Ulysses, I have known men and cities, and some years ago, Chance--a deity at whose shrine I always pay my devotions--led me to Barbadoes. While there I was attracted, as I always am, by the weird and mysterious, by the superstitions of the African race. I studied the cult of Obi, the belief of the Voodoo stone, and by a strange train of circumstances, which I need not relate, I gained possession of that powerful talisman which is known to all negroid America. With this stone in my possession, I was king--so to speak--of all the black race. This power I determined to use to my own advantage, and through it to make a rich marriage.