"Julian was afraid to tell me face to face that he intended to cut off my pension. The coward wrote, although I was at Chillum at the time. It was no coincidence that I was in the study between the visits of Lady Burville and Scott. I learnt from Joad, who opened the letter to Lady Burville, that Edermont expected those two at midnight on the second of August. I wanted to go and taunt him before them with his mean conduct. I did not intend to kill him, but only to taunt him, and to get possession of the manuscript, so as to force him to continue my pension. But he threatened me with a pistol, and in self-defence I killed him. The blow was unpremeditated, but, since it killed him, I refuse to say that I am sorry. I knew that Joad had secured the manuscript, but he refused to give it up, and I could not find out where he had hidden it. If I had secured the manuscript, no one would have known that John Mallison was in existence, and I would then have denounced Joad as the assassin and gained the fifty thousand pounds. It was his belief that I had taken it instead of Miss Dora that made him tell Carver the truth. But he is dead, too, the miserable traitor! I shall have one satisfaction in going to the scaffold in knowing that the man who injured me and the man who betrayed me have gone before. Both their deaths, directly and indirectly, can be laid at my door. I'm glad of it." As to Dora, there was some difficulty over her marriage--this time through her own scruples about her birth. She reminded Allen of the blot upon her life--that she had not even a right to the name of Dargill, much less that of Carew. But Allen laughed away her scruples and kissed away her tears, and swore that she should be his wife in the spring. Dora yielded to his persuasions and to those of Mrs. Tice, and surrendered herself to the full tide of happiness which was bearing her along to a prosperous future. So all was settled, and then came a final surprise from no less a person than Mr. Carver. Shortly after Mallison, alias Pride, had paid the penalty of his crime, the lovers were seated on the lawn of the Red House, under the shadow of the mighty cedar. It was a quiet and beautiful evening, just after sunset, and the sky was resplendent with colours like the hues of a butterfly's wing. Allen's arm was round the waist of Dora, and they were talking of their future. "I think it will be best for you to come to Canterbury, Dora," he was saying. "After the tragedy which has taken place in this house, you can never live in it without a shudder. Marry me, live in Canterbury, and we will keep on Mrs. Tice as housekeeper." "But I lose what little fortune I have if I leave it," remonstrated the girl. "What of that? I can give you a comfortable home, dearest. My practice is increasing, and in a few years we shall be quite opulent. Give up your father's bequest, my own, and let us begin our new life without dwelling within the shadow of a crime."