"Gentlemen, I believe I have broken the law in some respects, and I am prepared to suffer for my misdeeds. Perhaps, a long and blameless and not wholly useless life may plead for me now. I acted as I did because of a certain pride in my work, and because of my love for a dear wife and daughter. I dreamed that the dead past had indeed buried its dead but, by a most unusual combination of simple circumstances, the whole strange story has been brought to light. I have nothing more to say. Now that a long ordeal of silence is ended, I am happier to-day than I ever thought to be again in my existence. I can produce a certain number of documents to prove what I may term the historical part of my confession. The really vital part of it--the manner of my brother's death--can receive no other testimony than my own, eked out by such statement as my friend, Dr. Scaife, may find himself able to make after hearing my version of the tragedy." Marguerite ran to her father and threw her arms around his neck. "If they take you before a judge, dad," she cried, "let me go into court and tell them that I was the cause of all the trouble. Then he will warn me not to be such a bad little girl, and sympathize with you so greatly that he will say you leave the court without a stain on your character." * * * * * As a matter of fact, owing to the attitude of the authorities and with the active assistance of Banks in the columns of the _Nuttonby Gazette_, the official inquiry into the affair attracted very little notice. A ten-line paragraph explained that it was Mr. James Ogilvey who died, and not Mr. Stephen Garth, and a special faculty was obtained to correct the announcement on the stone in Bellerby churchyard. Naturally, the people in Elmdale and the neighborhood had a pretty fair knowledge of the truth, but everyone was so pleased to see the "professor" and his wife again that the thing was hushed up with remarkable ease. Even Percy Whittaker held his tongue. Village gossip has it that Storr, the chauffeur, is badly smitten by Betty Jackson's charms. The girl's mother clinched matters by grumbling that "sen Betty's gotten a young man there's no doin' owt wi' her." And Begonia Smith turned the garden into a fairy-land that summer. The Black Prince received his new and most impressive set of features before a certain noteworthy marriage took place, and beamed a courtly approval on the bride when she descended the stairs in her wedding dress. In fact, the Elmdale tragedy received its quietus when James Walker, senior, and James Walker, junior, watched Sir Robert and Lady Dalrymple drive past their office _en route_ to Paris and the Continent. Said the father: "Little things often lead to the most surprising events. Who'd ha' thought, Jimmie, when we let the 'House 'Round the Corner' to a stranger named Robert Armathwaite, that we were indirectly bringing about the marriage of Meg Garth to Sir Robert Dalrymple?"