“Thank you,” said Carpentaria simply. “Now it seems to me, if you are not too tired, that we can quite easily carry on a conversation upon this basis. It will be slow, but it will be none the less sure. By successively choosing letters out of the alphabet you can make up words, and so form sentences. You can choose the letters thus: I will run through the alphabet, and when I come to the letter you want, you will blink. Do you comprehend my scheme?” The eyes blinked. “And are you willing to try it?” There was a considerable pause, but in the end the eyes blinked. “Very good,” said Carpentaria. “Now, quite probably you will want to begin with the letter ‘I,’ eh?” The eyes blinked. “Excellent! Your first word is ‘I.’ Let us go to the next word. A, B, C, D--------” At “D” the eyes blinked again. With infinite patience, Carpentaria continued to help Mrs. Ilam to express herself, and though that mouth was incapable of speech and those hands would never write again, the woman transmitted her first thought to the outer world, and it went thus: “_I do not regret_.” There was something terrible, something majestic, in that unrepentant enunciation. It illustrated the remorseless character of the aged creature, whose spirit nothing apparently could conquer. Josephus Ilam moved away from the bed and hovered uncertainly between the dressing-table and the window. Jetsam got up from his chair and, taking Ilam’s place, examined the features of the woman who had ruined his life and cheated him out of all that was his. And even Jetsam could not forbear an admiring exclamation. “You are tremendous,” he murmured. “I could almost like you.” Carpentaria waved him aside. “Has Mr. Jetsam told us the truth, dear madam?” he interrogated her. And the eyes blinked. It was as though they blinked joyously, defiantly. “Do you agree that restitution should be made, so far as restitution is possible?” Carpentaria asked. There was no movement of the eyelids. “You object to restitution, even now?” Still there was no movement of the eyelids. But Josephus Ilam’s legs could be heard shuffling on the floor. “You wish to speak, then? A, B, C, D----------” Carpentaria went on to “W” before Mrs. Ilam signified that the sentence was to commence. The words ran: “Why named Jetsam?” The woman’s mind was evidently exploring, in a sort of indifferent curiosity, the side-issues, the minor scenes, of the terrific drama which she had started and of which she now witnessed the climax. She appeared to have no sense at all of her own responsibility. “It was a name I gave myself when I first found out who I was,” said Jetsam bitterly. “Something chucked overboard and forgotten, you see.” A slight smile seemed to illuminate the woman’s face. “Do you agree that restitution should be made?” Carpentaria repeated patiently. The eyes of the paralytic made no sign until Carpentaria began again to go through the alphabet. Then, letter by letter, the message came: