I took the key and followed her to the floor above. The box, of heavy oak bound with iron, with steamship and express labels fresh upon it, stood in one corner. I unlocked it and threw back the lid. Package upon package lay in it, just as they had come from the sub-treasury. I locked the box again, and put the key in my pocket. "Of course," I said, as I turned to go, "I can only repeat your story to my companion. He and Miss Holladay will decide what steps to take. But I am sure they will be merciful." They bowed without replying, and I went out along the path between the trees, leaving them alone with their dead. And it was of the dead I thought last and most sorrowfully: a man of character, of force, of fascination. How I could have liked him! CHAPTER XIX The End of the Story Paris in June! Do you know it, with its bright days and its soft nights, murmurous with voices? Paris with its crowded pavements--and such a crowd, where every man and woman awakens interest, excites speculation! Paris, with its blue sky and its trees, and its color--and its fascination there is no describing! Joy is a great restorer, and a week of happiness in this enchanted city had wrought wonders in our junior and his betrothed. It was good to look at them--to smile at them sometimes; as when they stood unseeing before some splendid canvas at the Louvre. The past was put aside, forgotten; they lived only for the future. And a near future, too. There was no reason why it should be deferred; we had all agreed that they were better married at once; so, that decided, the women sent us about our own affairs, and spent the intervening fortnight in a riot of visits to the costumer: for, in Paris, even for a very quiet wedding, a bride must have her trousseau. But the great day came at last; the red tape of French administration was successfully unknotted; and at noon they were wedded, with only we three for witnesses, at the pretty chapel of St. Luke's, near the Boulevard Montparnasse. There was a little breakfast afterward at Mrs. Kemball's apartment, and then our hostess bade them adieu, and her daughter and I drove with them across Paris to the Gare de Lyon, where they were to take train for a fortnight on the Riviera. We waved them off and turned back together. "It is a desecration to use a carriage on such a day," said my companion: so we dismissed ours and sauntered afoot down the Boulevard Diderot toward the river. "So that is the end of the story," she said musingly. "Of _their_ story, yes," I interjected. "But there are still certain things I do not quite understand," she continued, not heeding me. "Yes?" "For instance--why did they trouble to keep her prisoner?" "Family affection?" "Nonsense! There could be none. Besides the man dominated them; and I believe him to have been capable of any crime." "Perhaps he meant the hundred thousand to be only the first payment. With her at hand, he might hope to get more indefinitely. Without her----"