“I thought he had solemnly promised you not to drink any more,” Brand said.

“He had made the same promises before.  He took to drink merely to forget—­to drown this thing that was working in his brain.  If he had lived, it would have been the old story over again.  He would have buried the portrait in St. James’s Park, as he did before, gone back to the gin-shop, and in course of time drank himself to death.  This end is terrible enough, but there is a touch of something fine about it—­it redeems much.  What a worship the poor fellow had for Miss Lind, to be sure; because she was kind to him when he was half mad with his wrongs.  I remember he used to go about the churches in Venice to see if any of the saints in the pictures were like her, but none satisfied him.  You will send her a message of what he has done to repay her at last?”

“I will take it myself,” said Brand, hastily.  “I must go, Edwards.  You must get ——­ or ——­ to come to these chambers—­any one you may think of.  I must go myself, and at once.”

“To-night, then?”

“Yes, to-night.  It is a pity I troubled Evelyn to go.”

“He would stay a day, perhaps two days, in Genoa.  It is just possible you might overtake him by going straight through.”

“Yes,” said Brand, with a strange smile on his face, as if he were looking at something far away, and it was scarcely to his companion that he spoke, “I think I will go straight through.  I should not like any one but myself to take Natalie this news.”

They walked back to the chambers, and Brand began to put things in order for his going.

“It is rather a shame,” he said, during this business, “for one to be glad that this poor wretch has come to such an end; but what better could have happened to him, as you say?  You will see about a decent funeral, Edwards; and I will leave you something to stop the mouth of that caterwauling landlady.  You can tell them at the inquest that he has no relations in this country.”

By-and-by he said,

“If there are any debts, I will pay them; and if no one has any objection I should like to have that casket, to show to—­to Miss Lind.  Did you see the carving on it?”

“I looked at it.”

“He must have spent many a night working at that.  Poor wretch, I wish I had looked after him more, and done more for him.  One always feels that when people are dead, and it is too late.”

“I don’t see how you could have done more for him,” Edwards said, honestly enough:  though indeed it was he himself who had been Kirski’s chief protector of late.

Before evening came Brand had put affairs in proper trim for his departure, and he left London with a lighter heart than had been his for a long time.  But ever and anon, as he journeyed to the south, with a wonderful picture of joy and happiness before him, his mind would wander away back to the little room in Soho, and he could see the unhappy Russian lying dead, with the message left behind for the beautiful angel who had been kind to him; and he could not but think that Kirski would have died happier if he had known that Natalie herself would come some day and put flowers, tenderly and perhaps even with tears, on his grave.  Who that knew her could doubt but that that would be her first act on returning to England?  At least, Brand thought so.