This letter was delivered one morning when Gwen, my sister Alice, and I were at breakfast.  As I broke the seal I noticed that both ladies put down their knives and forks and ceased to eat.  A glance at Gwen’s eager face convinced me that she had no appetite for anything but my letter, and I accordingly read it aloud.  When I came to the last part of it, where Maitland referred to her, a flush, of pride I thought at the time, overspread her face, and when I had finished she said with some show of excitement, “If Mr. Maitland succeed in bringing Ragobah to justice I—­I shall owe him a debt of gratitude I can never repay!  It all seems like a romance, only so frightfully real.  We may expect another letter in a few days, may we not?  And Mr. Maitland, when may we expect him?”

I replied that I thought we might reasonably expect news of importance within five or six days, and that, so far as Maitland’s return was concerned, I did not look for it for as many weeks, as he would doubtless have to cope with the law’s delay there, as he would if here, and to comply with many tedious formalities before the government would allow Ragobah to be brought to this country for trial.  The only reply Gwen vouchsafed to this statement was a long-drawn unconscious sigh, which I interpreted as meaning, “Will it never end!”

CHAPTER II

   He who shakes the tree of Vengeance but harvests apples of Sodom
   in whose fruit of ashes he becomes buried, for the wage of the
   sinner is death.

There was no doubt of Ragobah’s guilt in any of our minds, so that action at our end of the line seemed entirely useless, and nothing was left us but to quietly await whatever developments Maitland should disclose.  We were not kept long in suspense, for in less than a week his next letter arrived.  I broke its seal in the presence of Gwen and my sister who, if possible, were even more excited than I myself.  Is it to be wondered at?  Here was the letter which was to tell us whether or not the murderer of John Darrow had been caught.  We felt that if Ragobah had returned to India, according to his expressed intention, there could be no doubt upon this point.  But had he so returned?  I read as follows: 

My dear doctor: 

The Dalmatia arrived as expected on Thursday, and on her came Ragobah.  I had him arrested as he stepped from the boat.  When examined he did not seem in the least disconcerted at the charges I preferred against him.  This did not surprise me, however, as I had expected that a man who could roll his naked body over the burning sands from Mabajan to the Ganges, and who could rise from the Vaisyan to the Brahman caste,—­albeit he fell again,—­would not be likely to betray his cause by exhibiting either fear or excitement.  He acknowledged his acquaintance with Mr. Darrow and the ill-feeling existing between them.  When charged with his murder at Dorchester