one could remember about him was the fact that he had lost several fingers of his right hand. When the right time came at the inquest, this railroad man accounted for his own time during that night. The tramp could not be traced, though the ticket agent remembered selling him a ticket, so it was proved he was no creation of the brakeman's fancy. He had vanished again into the unknown whence he had come.

So the tramp was eliminated from the case, and it was considered most likely that the banker had lost his charm on the street, or that Jack had managed to throw it from the window, if he had taken it from the person of his victim before he was surprised at the bedside.

It is not to be wondered at that the coroner's jury held the only suspect they had within reach, and Jack was removed to the county seat for trial, despite the indignant protest of his lawyer and his own most emphatic declarations of innocence.

3

CHAPTER III

A

A SEASIDE REVERIE

PERFECT summer day-a perfect view of shining sea and opalescent sky; white gulls circling over the green waters, silver wavelets breaking, with sleepy sighs, on the long beach of golden sand, and then the short green turf of the Down and sheer white face of the cliffs. Such was the scene on which Muriel Dean was gazing as she sat, idly plucking little blades of grass and flowerlets with restless fingers. It is quite likely, however, that her eyes saw nothing of the view, and that her strong, white, slender fingers were unconscious of the havoc they wrought to the tiny plant things within their reach. Anyone who could have gazed into her face would have known at once that her mind was far away, and the lines of worry between her eyes, that drew her white brows almost into a frown, spoke of perplexity, if not of pain.

In her lap lay a letter with which the gentle breezes played furtively, and, maybe, her faraway gaze had travelled over the sea more swiftly than the fleet-winged gulls, and was calling up for her a picture of the place whose name headed the missive. She had sat there already for some time in silence, motionless but for the restless fingers. So still, in fact, that a little skylark, who had been pouring out his glad heart in the blue ether above, dropped to the turf almost at her feet, fearless of danger. Surely the music of the seabreeze in the grass, the rhythm of the waves on the beach, the carol of the larks, and the warm touch of the sun should have sent her young blood leaping, to bring colour to her cheeks and peace to her mind. The disquieting element was not in nature, so it must have been within those white sheets. While her eyes wander over the ocean, let us take advantage of the passing zephyr to read the pages it has just turned over.

"So, Muriel, my Beloved, I have come to the conclusion that I must write you frankly and freely that which is on my heart, and I want you to take time for thought before you answer. As I have told you, things have gone better with me of late. During the last few months the work I have been doing for the firm has succeeded well,

the mining lands I hold in the Far West have become valuable, and I have every hope that ere long I may be prosperous enough to sail over-seas and ask of your father that which you have already promised, your dear hand in marriage, your sweet presence to make home for me in a far country.

"I need not tell you with what a throbbing heart and beating pulse I write those words. I love you, love you with a strong man's love and longing. I think I can truly say that every day of separation has strengthened your hold upon my heart and intensified my joyous anticipation of the future a future in which you are always the radiant, central figure. But, Dearest, on the very threshold of my Promised Land, I am arrested by a thought, a fear, almost a dread, lest what is to me such a blessed reality, may be to you a somewhat doubtful path into an unknown land.

"Muriel dear, I have read and re-read every line you have written, a thousand times, and I must confess I have sometimes laid away the precious sheets with a little shadow of unrest to raise a cloud in the sky of my hope. I have wondered if, during these years of separation, your feet have followed mine along the path of love, on and out to our land of dreams, or have you stopped by the way, or even stood still at the spot where we

pledged our troth three years ago. Your letters are dear and kind, full of sympathy and interest, but somehow I cannot read through the lines to the dear heart I love and want fully to understand. You were a mere child when I won you and left you, taking away as my inspiration the promise you gave to wait for me, but I have realised very fully that an absent lover's lot is not an easy one. He is beset with fears, tortured with doubts, overcome with misgivings. Can the flame in a woman's heart be kept alive and kindled to the intenser light and warmth that can alone return a man's devotion, by mere pen courtship, when he is thousands of miles away? I have been loving you all these years, but I have had no chance to woo you, and it may be that you have grown away from me, instead of growing closer, as I would have it be if you are to give yourself into my keeping. Dear, the little gold ring, with the word 'Mizpah' engraved upon it, means everything to me. Does it mean the same to you, or does it only hold my beloved to a given word, from which in honour she will not draw back?

"These have been my thoughts, and now, Muriel

dear, I pass them on to you for answer. Do you

love me enough to leave home, dear ones, and native land, to make my life yours? Can you do so