Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

me, Mr.

h you thought I knew. I do not; but I should like to if I may. It will perhaps

u saw me coming out of is the residence of a friend and former schoolmate. I went there to inq

tion, Miss Lorne? A

down in the world. You may possibly have heard that my uncle, Sir Horace, has married again. I think you must have done so, for the papers wer

id Cleek with a laugh. "Yes, I heard all about Sir Hora

dy Wyvern soon let me know that I was a superfluous person in the household. To-day, I came to the conclusion to leave

ho

little boy. The other, a young French girl who is returning shortly to Paris, who also might be 'glad to have me' as companion. Of course, I would sooner remain in England, but-well

possible that it will, eventually, be the young Frenc

up my mind as yet which of the two it will be. And

be one of the

now; so, naturally, of course-" She gave her shoulder an

en his eyebrows and his lower lip sucked in; as if he were mentally debatin

erly preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted-it is an absurd hypothesis, of course: but let us use it for the sake of argument. We will say you had done your best to live down that offensive 'something' done, and were still doing all that lay in your power to atone for it; that nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that 'something'

ny possibility constitute a right? I should feel in duty bound, in honour bound, to speak, of course. To do the other would be to obtain the position by fr

could give you your heart's desire? The only thi

and done more to merit what I wanted than if I had secured it by treachery. Think of the boy you helped a little while ago. How much respect will you have for him if he never lives up to his promise; never goes to Clarges Street at all? Yet if he does live up to it, will

I am going to ask you to indulge in yet another little flight of fancy. Carry your mind back, will you, to the night when your cousin-to the night two years ago when Sir Horace Wyvern'

down stairs and left me with him, that I was talking to Mr. Narkom. I

found you lying fainting at the foot of the stairs. The man had touched you, spoken to you, even c

wake up in the middle of the night thinking of it and going cold all over. He said, 'You ha

'll not attempt to win it by fraud. Miss Lorne, I am that man. I am the 'Vanishing Cracksman

en so, she was conscious-dimly but yet conscious-of a feeling of relief that they had come at last close to the end of the heath, that there was the faint glow of