“He followed the guilty pair, like a blood-hound, for weary months and months.  For a long time it seemed as though he must give up the search as fruitless; but at last, in the open street of a French city, he met the man Walls face to face.  He flew at him like a madman, grasped his throat, and held him until the man turned black in the face.  But he was lithe, and young, and powerful, and he shook him off at last.  Then commenced a struggle for life or death.  The street was a lonely one; the time past midnight.  No one was abroad; not a creature was to be seen.  Walls pulled out a pistol and shot James Dane through the head.  With a cry of agony, the murdered man fell forward on his face.  Another instant, and Walls had fled.  The dead man was alone in the deserted street.

“Next day the papers were full of the mysterious murder, but before next day Walls and Mary Dane were far away.  Rewards were offered by the government, the police were set on the track, but all in vain—­the murderer was not to be found.

“But there was one who knew it, and to whom the knowledge was a death-blow—­guilty Mary Dane.  At all times she had been more weak than wicked, and when Walls had fled home, blood-stained and ghastly, and in his first frenzy had told her all, she dropped down at his feet like a dead woman.

“Mary Dane fled with him from the scene of his crime, because his baby daughter lay on her arm, and she would not see its guilty father die a felon’s death; but her heart was torn with remorse from that hour.  She never held up her head again.  Her wicked love turned to hatred and loathing; the very first opportunity she left him, and, like a distracted creature, made her way home.

“Walls made no effort to follow her—­he thought she had gone off in a fit of remorse and misery and drowned herself.  He was glad to be rid of her, and he left France at once, and wandered away over the world.

“Mary Dane came home with her child—­home to die.  On her death-bed she told me the story of my husband’s death, and from the hour I heard it, Reason tottered on her throne.  I have never been sane since my misery drove me mad.

“Mary Dane died, and I buried her.  The child went to the work-house—­I would not have touched it with a pair of tongs—­and there it, too, died of lack and care.  And so the miserable story of sin and shame ended, as all such stories must end.

“But the misery did not end here.  You were left me, but I seemed to care for you no longer.  I sat down, a stunned and senseless thing, and let all belonging to me go to rack and ruin.  The farm went, the furniture went, the homestead went—­I was left a widowed, penniless, half-crazed wretch.  Thus all was gone but the clothes upon our backs—­you went, too.  We were starving, but for the pitying charity of others.  As you sat singing by the road-side, the manager of a strolling band of players overheard you, took a fancy to your pretty looks, and ways, and voice, and made me an offer for you.  I don’t think I knew what I was doing half the time—­I didn’t then—­I let you go.