'You are, indeed,' said Elsie gravely--'the principal person concerned. Very well, Mr. Dering--now I will tell you more. I know the--the criminal. I can put my hand upon him at any moment. It is one man who has done the whole, beginning with the cheque for which Athelstan was suspected--one man alone.' 'Why, child, what can you know about it? What can you do?' 'You were never in love, Mr. Dering--else you would understand that a girl will do a great deal--oh! a great deal more than you would think--for her lover. It is not much to think for him and to watch for him--and for her brother--the brother who has stripped himself of everything to give his sister!' She was fain to pause, for the tears which rose again and choked her voice. 'But, Elsie--what does this mean? How can you know what no one else has been able to find out?' 'That is my affair, Mr. Dering. Perhaps I dreamed it.' 'Do you mean that you will get back all the papers--all the transfers--the dividends that have been diverted--everything?' 'Everything is safe. Everything shall be restored.--My dear guardian, it is a long and a sad story. I cannot tell you now. Presently, perhaps. Or to-morrow. I do not know how I shall be able to tell you. But for your property, rest easy. Everything will come back to you--everything--except that which cannot be stored in the vaults of the Bank.' The last words he heard not, or understood not. 'I shall get back everything!' The eyes of the Individualist lit up and his pale cheek glowed--old age has still some pleasures. 'It is not until one loses Property that one finds out how precious it has become. Elsie, you remember what I told you, a day or two ago. Ah! I don't forget quite everything--a man is not the shivering naked soul only, but the complete figure, equipped and clothed, armed and decorated, bearing with him his skill, his wit, his ingenuity, his learning, his past, and his present, his memories and his rejoicings, his sorrows and his trials, his successes and his failures, and his Property--yes--his Property. Take away from him any of these things, and he is mutilated: he is not the perfect soul. Why, you tell me that my Property is coming back-- I awake again. I feel stronger already; the shadows are flying before me: even the terror of that strange forgetfulness recedes: and the haunting of Edmund Gray. I can bear all, if I get my Property back again. As for this forger--this miscreant--this criminal--you will hale him before the judge------' 'Yes--yes. We will see about the miscreant afterwards. The first thing is to find the man and recover your Property, and to dispel the suspicions resting on innocent persons. If I do the former, you must aid me in the latter.' 'Assuredly. I shall not shrink from that duty.'