Now it happened that, an hour after their departure, death, as though determined not to be twice baulked, struck his dart at one of the patients who remained at the monastery, an Englishman also, a stockbroker of travelling proclivities whose proposed itinerary had scarcely included the River Styx. During the morning the reporter of the local paper, who had, from the columns of a Madrid “contemporary,” discovered that an Englishman of note was among the wounded (a fact which he had totally failed to get wind of at first hand), bustled up to the monastery with an eye to “copy” and the unusual importance of a series of press telegrams to the capitals of Europe. Only to be told that the Englishman had died that morning. Too disgusted at a lost opportunity to enquire more closely as to the identity of the deceased, he jumped to the conclusion that it was of course the eminent advocate and distinguished member of the British Parliament who was dead, and hurried off in sorrow to his office, formulating his dispatch by the way. So it came to be flashed abroad that Paul Gastineau had, as expected, succumbed to his injuries. Herriard reading the news some days after was hot on contradicting it, and greatly surprised when Gastineau forbade him to do so. “Let it be,” he commanded. “It is scarcely a mistake. I am dead. Yes; considering what my life has been, as really dead as many a man who is in his grave. Let it be so, Herriard; give me your word that you will not set the mistake right. I will tell you why presently.” He was so evidently in earnest, that Herriard could not refuse to pass his word, unaccountable as the request seemed. Yet, perhaps, to him who, being a humble member of the same profession, knew well his companion’s position and character therein, it was just conceivable that this brilliant and ambitious man could not bear to swallow fate’s nauseous dose in public. If we have to make a wry face we need not stand in the market-place to do it. So it came to pass that the report of Gastineau’s death was never contradicted; he was supposed to have been buried in an obscure Spanish grave; obituary notices appeared in the papers, and the very fact that these were allowed to pass unchallenged practically confirmed their truth. This business of a supposititious death would, however, have been difficult to carry out successfully had it not been helped by the circumstance that Gastineau stood, so far as family ties were concerned, almost alone in the world. There was no near relative to go out to Spain and make enquiries, even as a pious duty. Such distant cousins as he had were poor, for he had raised himself; he had never encouraged any advances they had attempted, and they accepted the news of his death with little more interest than the rest of the world. So when presently it appeared that he had left to his friend Geoffrey Herriard a life interest in his property the relations had scarcely an excuse for a grievance.