The murdered man was Anthony March, the brother of Pauline.  As he had already confessed, Ceneri had spent all the trust-money of which he was guardian for Pauline and her brother, in the cause of Italian freedom.  When the young man grew up, the time drew near when Ceneri must explain all and take the consequences.  The evil day was delayed by providing him with money.  That money ran out.  Ceneri and the two other men, fearful of the consequences to all of them, decided upon a plan to silence Anthony.  He was to be lured to the house in Horace Street, and to leave it as a lunatic in charge of a doctor and keepers.  But Macari ruined the plot.  He was in love with Pauline, and Anthony had spoken contemptuously of such a match for his sister.  A few insolent words at the house in Horace Street, and the passionate Italian’s knife had found its way into the young man’s heart.  It was Ceneri who had saved my life when I stumbled upon the scene.  The third sharer in the tragedy, who had drowned Pauline’s shrieks in a sofa cushion, had since died raving mad in a cell.  That was the story.

I hastened back to England, leaving money behind me to provide a few comforts for the unfortunate prisoner.  I went direct to the little village where Pauline was staying with Priscilla.  I could see that she remembered me but as a person in a dream.  I had to woo her now.  Of our marriage she seemed to have forgotten everything.  Though all the old apathy had disappeared, and her mind had once more awakened in her beautiful body, she did not remember that.  I despaired at last of winning her, and I determined to bid her good-bye forever.  As I sat in the woods with her for the last time, gloom in my heart, I fell into a doze.  I was awakened by kisses on my cheeks.  I sprang to my feet.  In front of me stood Pauline, and looking into her eyes, I saw that she loved me.

She had realised on my first return that I was her husband, but had determined to find out if I loved her.  As I said nothing, so she too had remained silent.

“Gilbert,” she said, “I have wept, but now I smile.  The past is passed.  Let the love I bore my brother be buried in the greater love I give my husband.  Let us turn our backs on the dark shadows and begin our lives.”

Have I more to tell—­one thing only.  We went to Paris for our real honeymoon.  The great war was over, and the Commune had just ended.  In the company of a friend I saw some Communists led out to be shot, and among their faces I recognised Macari.

* * * * *

FENIMORE COOPER

The Last of the Mohicans

      James Fenimore Cooper, born in New Jersey on September 15,
     1789, was a hot-headed controversialist of Quaker descent,
     who, after a restless youth, partly spent at sea, became the
     earliest conspicuous American novelist.  Apart from fiction,