"You are bearing _my brother's_ name. But it was a name that the unhappy boy had so shamefully disgraced in Australia that he abandoned it, and, as he lay upon his death-bed, the last act of his wasted life was to write an imploring letter begging me to change mine too. For the infamous companion of his crime who had first tempted, then betrayed him, had possession of all his papers and letters, many of them from _me_, and was threatening to bring them to our Virginia home and expose him to our neighbours. Maddened by desperation, the miserable boy twice attempted the life of the scoundrel, and might have added that blood guiltiness to his other sins, had he lived. I _did_ change my name to my mother's maiden one, left the country, and have lived here to escape the revelations of that desperado, should he fulfil his threat." In a flash of recollection Flint remembered the startled look that had come into his assailant's eye after they had clinched. It was the same man who had too late realised that his antagonist was not Fowler. "Thank God! you are for ever safe from any exposure from that man," he said, gravely, "and the name of Fowler has never been known in San Francisco save in all respect and honour. It is for you to take back--fearlessly and alone!" She did--but not alone, for she shared it with her husband. [Illustration: ANECDOTES OF THE WAR PATH IRVING MONTAGU] "One never can tell." This is a world of change, and anything beyond the limits of the most fertile imagination may happen to anyone, anywhere, at any moment.