"It is late now," said he, "and I must be off. Poor Severino had not a relation in this country that I know of. There will be a great deal to do to-morrow." Steel at once insisted on bearing all expenses; that would be the lightest part, he said. "You have done so much!" he added. "By the way, you can't go without saying good-night to my wife. She has still to thank you." "I don't want to be thanked." "But for you the truth might never have come out." "Still I shall be much happier if she never speaks of it again." "Very well, she shall not--on one condition." "What is that?" "Langholm, I thought last summer we were to be rather friends? I don't think that of many people. May I still think it of you?" "If you will," said Langholm. "I--I don't believe I ever should have brought myself to give you away!" "You behaved most fairly, my dear fellow. I shall not forget it, nor the way you scored off the blackmailer Abel. If it is any satisfaction to you, I will tell you what his secret was. Nay, I may as well; and my wife, I must tell her too, though all these months I have hidden it from her; but I have no doubt he took it to the police when you failed him. It is bound to get about, but I can live it down as I did the thing itself. Langholm, like many a better man, I left my country for my country's good. Never mind the offence; the curious can hunt up the case, and will perhaps admit there have been worse. But that man and I were transported to Western Australia on the same vessel in '69." "And yet," said Langholm--they were not quite his next words--"and yet you challenged me to discover the truth! I still can't understand your attitude that night!" Steel stood silent. "Some day I may explain it to you," he said. "I am only now going to explain it to my wife." The men shook hands. And Langholm rode on his bicycle off the scene of the one real melodrama of a life spent in inventing fictitious ones; and if you ask what he had to show for his part in it, you may get your answer one day from his work. Not from the masterpiece which he used to talk over with Mrs. Steel, for it will never be written; not from any particular novel or story, much less in the reproduction of any of these incidents, wherein he himself played so dubious a part; but perhaps you will find your answer in a deeper knowledge of the human heart, a stronger grasp of the realities of life, a keener sympathy with men and (particularly) with women, than formerly distinguished this writer's books. These, at all events, are some of the things which Charles Langholm has to show, if he will only show them. And in the meantime you are requested not to pity him. Steel went straight to his wife. Tears were still in her eyes, but such tears, and such eyes! It cost him an effort to say what he had to say, and that was unusual in his case.