have him arrested, but his answer was: 'No; for his mother's sake, I will save him.'
"Brinsley at this time was living with some people who had a son much about his own age, and very like him in build. This son was taken ill, and, after being seen once by a doctor, died. The doctor gave a certificate, but he was told that the name of the deceased was David Brinsley. The parents of the dead man were heavily bribed by my misguided brother to allow this fraud to be perpetrated, and they removed immediately after the funeral, while David Brinsley lay in concealment here, but ultimately fled to Spain. In order to hide the extent of this wretched man's defalcations, my brother caused the register to be secretly removed from the office and brought here, but he could never bring himself to destroy it. He always said that some day it must be restored. From that moment his life became a terror to him. On the night that I so abruptly entered the room when you and Samuel were together, I was in a state of horrible distress, for I had just discovered that David Brinsley had gone out and nobody knew where he had gone to. He returned, however, at a very late hour; and subsequently I heard from a private source that you had caused the body of the supposed David Brinsley to be exhumed. I knew then that it was no longer possible to keep our fearful secret. I insisted on Brinsley leaving the house for ever, and, disguised as a clergyman, he went to Spain.
"After your last visit I urged my brother to return the register to the office, but he said he would not do that until he was assured that Brinsley was out of the reach of the law; though, yielding to my entreaties, he consented, with a view to its more effectual concealment, to hide it in the stream. The next morning we found it had been removed, and guessing that you had set a watch upon us, and fearing the dreadful exposure that would ensue, my dear brother's brain gave way, and, unable to endure the misery of his position any longer, he drowned himself in the stream which had failed to keep his secret. It is all over now; the sorrow, the suffering, and heart-ache are ended; and after the fitful fever of life, which for him ought to have been almost without a care had it not been for the deception of the woman he loved, he sleeps well. In a little while I shall join him, and realize that peace that the world cannot give."
"Mr. Rogers growled."
Such was Miss Trelawney's sad story, which I proved to be correct in every detail. And when I repeated it in substance to Mr. Rogers, he growled and said:—
"Ah! it is ten thousand pities that he has cheated the law."
As I have said, Mr. Rogers was an unsentimental man, and judged everything and everybody from his own matter-of-fact point of view. But I, while admitting that Mr. Trelawney was weak and foolish in a worldly sense, could hardly repress a sigh; and was tempted to say, "Judge not harshly, lest ye be judged harshly in return." Altogether it was a pathetic tale of a man's love, a woman's fickleness, and full of a great moral lesson which we who are not without some vein of sentiment may take to heart.
[Next month will appear the first of the new series of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Admirers of that eminent detective are also informed that "The Sign of Four," the story of the wonderful adventure by which he gained his reputation, can now be obtained at this office. Price 3s. 6d.]
