"At last," he thought, "at last I am to hear something of her, of my poor old mother. Whatever this tells me is all I am likely ever to know of her until I die. To-night I cut off for ever my connection with the career of Wat Grey. To-day Wat Grey departs this life of Daneford." He broke the envelope and found these unsigned, undated words: "Through the kindness of some honest friends of your honest father I am now in a London almshouse, so I am fully provided for. I think it only right you should know this. I have seen by the papers that Sir William Midharst will, the morning you get this, marry Miss Midharst. I handed that lady all I had in the world to the last penny. I do not know how you have evaded discovery so long. But follow my example, and give back to the robbed all you have left in the world. These are my last words to you." He put down the letter, sighed, and muttered: "An ungracious final leave-taking, mother, an ungracious farewell. The giving back forms no part of my plan. Sir William would not touch a penny. You yourself will relent and be sorrowful when you hear of this day's events, for they will get into the papers as well as the marriage of Sir William. The newspapers will have the marriage paragraph, and then one headed, 'Shocking Death of Mr. Henry Walter Grey.' "No, mother, I must save my name and save my reputation, and both can be best preserved by sacrificing Wat Grey. Wat Grey must go to keep his name good. There is no need he should really die. It will be quite enough if he change his habitation and his name. "I am not strong enough to fight it out any longer. I cannot leave this house as it is, and this house is killing me. It is killing me slowly with its awful sights and sounds and memories. I must, I will fly. This very night I shall leave it for ever, and I shall leave it incapable of telling any tales. "At one blow I shall destroy its sights, and its sounds, and its memories, and cut myself off from it, Daneford, and the past for ever. I shall get rid of all the burden I bear. I shall break away from all my old associations, all things to remind me of the past. With twenty thousand pounds in my pocket, and the whole breadth of sunny France between me and this place, I shall be at ease. They may charge my memory with the crime of theft, but I shall leave evidence of my innocence behind me. Farleg may come back and accuse my name of murder; but he will have neither Wat Grey nor evidence against Wat Grey, for Wat Grey and the evidence against him will disappear together, and I will live a quiet life beyond the Alps or the Pyrenees." He leant back in his chair and reviewed his preparations with the deliberate complaisance of one whose plans were unassailable.