"I make this confession," Forester said, faintly, "at the request of Captain Mervyn, who risked his life in getting me out from among the Kaffirs. My real name is George Forester, and at home I live near Carnesford, in Devonshire. I was one night poaching in Mr. Carne's woods, with some men from Dareport, when we came upon the keepers. There was a fight. One of the keepers knocked my gun out of my hand, and as he raised his stick to knock me on the head, I whipped out my knife, opened it, and stuck it into him. I didn't mean to kill him, it was just done in a moment; but he died from it. We ran away. Afterwards I found that I had lost my knife. I suppose I dropped it. That's all I have to say." "Not all, Forester, not all," said Ronald, who had listened with impatience to the slowly-uttered words of the wounded man; "not all. It isn't that, but about the murder of Miss Carne I want you to tell." "The murder of Miss Carne," George Forester repeated, slowly. "I know nothing about that. She made Ruth break it off with me, and I nearly killed Ruth, and would have killed her if I had had the chance, but I never had. I was glad when I heard she was killed, but I don't know who did it." "But your knife was found by her body," Ronald said. "You must have done it, Forester." "Murdered Miss Carne!" the man said, half raising himself on his elbow in surprise. "Never. I swear I had nothing to do with it." A rush of blood poured from his mouth, for one of the spears had pierced his lung, and a moment later George Forester fell back dead. The disappointment and revulsion of feeling were too great for Ronald Mervyn, and he fainted. When he recovered, the surgeon was leaning over him. [Illustration: _George Forester's death._] "You mustn't talk, lad; you must keep yourself quite quiet, or we shall have fever setting in, and all sorts of trouble." Ronald closed his eyes, and lay back quietly. How could this be? He thought of Mary Armstrong's letter, of the chain of proofs that had accumulated against George Forester. They seemed absolutely convincing, and yet there was no doubting the ring of truth in the last words of the dying man. His surprise at the accusation was genuine; his assertion of his innocence absolutely convincing; he had no motive for lying; he was dying, and he knew it. Besides, the thing had come so suddenly upon him there could have been no time for him to frame a lie, even if he had been in a mental condition to do so. Whoever killed Margaret Carne, Ronald Mervyn was at once convinced that it was not George Forester. There he lay, thinking for hours over the disappointment that the news would be to Mary Armstrong, and how it seemed more unlikely than ever that the mystery would ever be cleared up now. Gradually his thoughts became more vague, until at last he fell asleep.