"I feared to remain longer in England, and desired to place as great a distance as possible between myself and the scene of my crime. I, belauded by the newspapers as a coming man, was a traitor to my country and a murderer. My conscience drove me to madness. I could not get rid of the ever-recurring recollections of my crime. And so it has been during these later years, whether I have travelled through the eternal snows of the Himalayas, explored the forbidden lands of Bhutan or Nepal, or sat on the Treasury Bench of the House. I have lived in constant dread of denunciation and exposure. While in Calcutta, as the guest of the Viceroy on my return from Chinese Turkestan, I learnt that May Lennox had married a wealthy man named Brodie, and had gone to live up at Kapurthala, in the Punjab. Since that day I have heard nothing of her. Four years have passed since my return, years of awful anxiety and mental strain that have made me old before my time; yet at last Archibald Cator, the man from whom no state secret is safe--that midnight visitor at Wroxeter--has discovered the truth. His secret agents have penetrated to the archives of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Constantinople, and from them have secured those photographs, to which is attached a docket written in Turkish stating by what channel they were secured. Thus from the carefully-guarded storehouse of the Sultan's secrets has the evidence of my crime been exposed, and my accusation is now at hand. Guilty of treason and of murder I have lost your love, Claudia--I can hope for nothing, nothing. My very name will become a reproach, and the very people who have so often applauded me will now hate my memory as that of a betrayer. My punishment is complete!" he cried wildly, in hoarse despair. "I have sinned, and this is God's judgment!" CHAPTER THIRTY. TELLS A STRANGE TALE. "And your secret is known," said the pale, agitated woman despairingly, her dark eyes still fixed upon the guilty man before her. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper, for the wounded heart made it difficult for her to speak. He nodded in the affirmative. "To whom?" she asked. "To Cator, of the Secret Service; to many of his agents, no doubt; to one, at least, of my political opponents, and to a woman who is your friend--Muriel Mortimer!" "To Muriel?" she gasped in abject amazement. "Yes," he answered; "the woman who, if report speaks correctly, was suggested by you to Lady Meldrum as a fitting person to become my wife."