"To you, Witherspoon, I can say that every mad scheme which I framed to reach wealth and power has failed miserably; that I have found my soul's unhappiness in the betrayal of poor Clayton's friendship. "And yet, as I hope for the forgiveness of an Almighty God, I knew nothing of his murder, either in the deed or its conception. Let me be forgotten by all the world, forgiven by one alone." The two friends long gazed at each other in a gloomy silence. "I leave the whole mystery to you, my friend," at last wearily said the lawyer. "I will never try to read between the lines. Take the whole correspondence with you. I have already had a copy made of the Vice-Consul's letter and Ferris' own few sentences. I know that Alice will surely consecrate this vile money to some good purpose, and so I make you my ambassador. "She will understand why I hope never to hear Ferris' name again, for I know and feel that he was a murderer at heart. Had Clayton missed the snares of the deadly thug who coveted the money which was so criminally exposed, for the golden bribe of the Worthington fortune, Ferris would have sacrificed the only man who stood between him and the millionaire's favor, between him and, perhaps, this orphaned girl's hand. "And, as sure as the sinner errs, so sure is that old proverb, 'THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH!' "I will simply forward any further Amoy enclosures to Miss Worthington for her own action. The drama is done, the curtain has fallen, and the lights are turned out forever!" Mr. and Mrs. John Witherspoon were enjoying the delights of a Continental run a year later, when that bright-eyed young matron, Madame Francine, read to her delighted husband the account given by Miss Worthington of the opening of the "Free Hospital and Orphans' Home," to which the young heiress had dedicated the estate of the unfortunate Ferris, as well as a large sum set aside by herself. The Witherspoons were in the far niente, floating on the Grand Canal in beautiful Venice, while the young beauty selected Alice's letter from a sheaf handed to them by the porter of the Hotel Danieli, who pursued them in a gondola. The married lovers were now on their way to the Nile and the eternal glow of its cloudless skies. Witherspoon listened with a mock gravity, until he suddenly interrupted, "What does she say of Atwater?" "Nothing," answered the merry matron. "It's all about the grand opening of the Home." "Then, IT'S ALL RIGHT!" calmly answered Jack, lighting a cigar and leaning back under the parti-colored awning. "When a woman says nothing about a man, it's surely all right. I can wait, wait patiently, till her philanthropic fever abates. I suppose that we will hear something at the First Cataract, or at Khartoum, or some other remote spot, perhaps where the lion basks upon the tomb of ruined Palmyra! There is a happy crisis approaching 'in the near future,' as the swell journals say."