That was a point on which he meant to please himself, and did.

When, after a short honeymoon at Granada, the young married couple returned to Gibraltar and travelled leisurely homewards, Lord Essendine was one of the first to welcome him on arrival, and to congratulate him on the beauty of his bride.

By-and-by, when the days of mourning were ended, Lady Essendine came out of her strict retirement to present Mrs. McKay at Court; and the handsome Spanish girl with the strange romantic history was one of the greatest successes of the next London season.  Ere long the future succession of the Essendine title was assured beyond doubt.  McKay was blessed with a numerous family—­many sons came to satisfy the head of the house that the title of Essendine and the family name were in no danger of extinction.  But Lord Essendine lived for many years after the termination of the Crimean war, and McKay was a general officer and a Knight of the Bath before he became the fifteenth Earl of Essendine.

Having thus disposed of the hero whose early career was so chequered and eventful, I must add a word as to the fate of the other actors in this veracious narrative.

First as to Hyde, who continued to be known by that name to his death, preferring it greatly to the other, with its painful memories.  He remained a prisoner in the depot of the Prefecture only a few days.  The confession made by Ledantec and the evidence of other witnesses so amply attested the innocence of the M. Gascoigne accused of the Tinplate Street murder that his release followed as a matter of course.  Hyde waited in Paris to hear the issue of the trial of the real offenders, and, painful as it was to be present at the sentence of the woman who had once borne his name, he yet listened without flinching to the whole story.  After all, there was a certain relief in knowing that he was well rid of her.  It was little likely that the Central prison to which she was consigned in perpetual “reclusion” would ever surrender its prey.

He heard, too, with lively satisfaction, the sentence of his old foe, Ledantec, to hard labour at the galleys for twenty years.

With these trials, and the penalties that followed them, he turned down for ever the dark page of his life, and presently returned to England, where he spent the remainder of his leave with his old friend and comrade, McKay.

After that had expired he returned to the Crimea, and was present at the closing scenes of the war.  He continued to serve with the Royal Picts for many years more—­the regiment had become his home—­and, as he was in due course promoted to the post of paymaster, his position and income were materially changed.

He lived to a green old age, retiring from the service full of rank and honour.  Colonel Hyde was long a notable figure at his club in Pall Mall, which gained a new and very popular chef when Anatole Belhomme wrote him that he had been summarily dismissed from the French police.  Hyde spent a great portion of every year at Essendine Castle, after his friend had succeeded to the estates, and there was no more honoured guest than he at the coming of age of Rupert, Viscount Lydstone, his godson.