He would never completely feel himself out of the presence
of death. Day and night he must watch himself and guard himself, his
tongue, his feet, his thoughts, never knowing in what hour the eyes of
the law would pierce the veneer of his disguise and deliver his life as
the forfeit. There were times when the contemplation of these things
appalled him, and his mind turned to other channels of escape. And
then--always--he heard Conniston's cool, fighting voice, and the red
blood fired up in his veins, and he faced home.
He was Derwent Conniston. And never for an hour could he put out of his
mind the one great mystifying question in this adventure of life and
death, who was Derwent Conniston? Shred by shred he pieced together
what little he knew, and always he arrived at the same futile end. An
Englishman, dead to his family if he had one, an outcast or an
expatriate--and the finest, bravest gentleman he had ever known. It was
the WHYFORE of these things that stirred within him an emotion which he
had never experienced before. The Englishman had grimly and
determinedly taken his secret to the grave with him. To him, John
Keith--who was now Derwent Conniston--he had left an heritage of deep
mystery and the mission, if he so chose, of discovering who he was,
whence he had come--and why.
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