“I was not a man, Stuart, when I had read that letter; I was a brute--a savage animal. Had Hugh Everest been near me, I should have torn his cruel heart from his body, and his tongue from his false, lying lips. A fury seized me to find him--find him, though I searched the world round; face to face with him, I could breathe out the passion, remorse, revenge, scorn, and agony of my bursting heart. But I could not leave England till I knew where my darling was, my sweet, wronged angel--till I had knelt in the dust at her feet, and bowed my head in shame; and so my search went on. “Years passed, but only a slight clew turned up now and then, always with the same ending. I have wandered--led by these disheartening clews--from one country to another; and at last the men I employed grew weary, and I had to work alone. But I was kept alive by my love and my desire for revenge. Everest never came to England--coward and villain--but the day came, a day not long past, when we met, and on his dying bed I forced him to confess his wrong and own his deceit. Then, when he was gone, the misery of my wasted life returned, and I sunk for a while beneath my load of care. “Hope was almost dead forever when I visited you at Crosbie; and then suddenly by one of those strange, unexpected chances that come to us at times, it burst into a living, glowing flame once more. All through the past years I had prayed that, should Gladys be gone, my child might be spared; and, Stuart, my prayer was granted. At Crosbie one morning I came face to face with a girl at sight of whom I seemed to have stepped back into the past. I was startled by the image of my sweet wife. I spoke to the girl, learned her name--Margery Daw--and not until she had gone did hope wake in my breast, bringing once more the feeling of eager gladness that I thought dead forever. “I waited a day or two, but quietly made inquiries, and obtained all the information I wanted; then, having first tested the truth and honesty of your nature, I determined to confide all to you, and claim my child; for that she is my child there is no doubt. But happiness was not to be grasped at once; again fate was unkind. When I made my way to the cottage where Margery lived, it was to find her gone--gone across the sea to Australia. The sudden pain and disappointment aside, I was myself again. Australia was nothing to me; I would start at once, and clasp my child yet in my arms before I died.