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 thought of ever returning and simply carried out the plan I had from the beginning when discovery should come—merely to obliterate Tommy Locke from the face of the earth. I went back on two occasions to try to find that scarab. Partly because of its real value and partly because it meant a revelation of the fact that Locke and Barham were one and the same. There is my story. I did suspect Mrs. Sayre from the very first—but I didn’t want to suggest it. She was—I thought—a friend of my wife, and, too, it seemed too dreadful to turn suspicion toward a woman. I went to see her—and she begged me to try to hush up the whole matter. Now she has paid the extreme penalty herself—is it necessary to put the facts before the public?”

“That’s as the police see fit, Mr. Barham. It may be necessary to tell the story, or they may conclude not to.”

“I want especially to prevent Mrs. Selden’s learning of it,” Barham said. “It would break her heart to know the extent of her daughter’s wrong-doing. I shall do all I can to make her life calm and serene for a year or so. At the end of that time, I shall feel I have done my duty by her, and I shall arrange for her to live apart from me.”

Barham did not say who would live with him, and who would be a more desirable companion than his present mother-in-law.

But in his heart, he said, with a great wave of loving affection, “My blessed little Pearl!”