Mrs. Melray the elder was never told that it was to the hand of her nephew that James Melray owed his death-blow. To her, as to the world at large, the Loudwater Tragedy remained an unsolved mystery. Neither was she ever enlightened as to that secondary crime of forgery and fraud of which her nephew had been guilty. To have told her would have answered no good purpose, but might, indeed, have had a serious effect upon her health, already hardly tried by that which had gone before. It was a quite sufficient shock to her to learn of the elopement of Dyson and Miss Glyn. Womanlike, she laid the whole blame of the affair on the girl. Doubtless she was one of those double-faced, scheming hussies who seem sent into the world purposely to spoil the lives and ruin the careers of whatever young men may not be strong-minded enough to resist their siren-like blandishments. That poor dear Richard had been both weak and foolish she could not deny; still, he was to be pitied far more than blamed. He was not the first man by many, nor would he be the last, to fall a victim to the arts of a designing woman. As long as she lived Mrs. Melray continued to think and speak of Dyson with mingled pity and tenderness, and at her death it was found that she had bequeathed him half of all she had to leave. Long before that event took place Robert Melray had paid over to Dyson, or rather to the solicitor who represented him, the three thousand pounds willed him by the man whose death lay at his door. Had it not been for those two legacies falling in one after another, Dyson, in all probability, would have lived several years longer than he did. But for them--his wife's fortune having been quickly dissipated--he would not have been able to continue in that course of fast living, combined with hard drinking, which gradually shattered his constitution and consigned him to a premature grave while he ought still to have been in the prime of life. The Erinyes have many ways of avenging their misdeeds on the children of men. Within twenty-four hours of Dyson's disappearance Denia had quitted Loudwater House, never to return. She announced her intention of taking up her abode, for a time at least, with certain friends in London whom she had known during her uncle's lifetime. About a year later, she married again, by which time she had received her share of the property left by her husband. Her second husband (a blackleg with the manners and education of a gentleman) was a very different type of man from James Melray, as, later on, Denia found to her cost. It was about the time of Denia's marriage that the final mystery in connection with the Loudwater Tragedy found its solution.