CONTAINS THE CONCLUSION
Need I dwell further upon the stirring events of that night? It is
assuredly sufficient to say that the arrests made by the police
numbered nearly forty persons, all of whom were charged with various
offences, in addition to being found in an illicit gaming-house. Many
of them, old offenders and desperate characters notwithstanding the
fact that they were outwardly respectable members of society, in due
course received long periods of imprisonment, but Julie Fournereau, in
consideration of the information she had given regarding poor Reggie’s
death, was dismissed with a fine of two thousand francs as owner of the
house in question, and has since disappeared into obscurity.
Ulrica arrived in Paris next day with Gerald, and was absolutely
dumfounded when we related the whole of the amazing story. That day
too proved the happiest in all my life! Need I relate how on the
following morning Ernest sought me and begged me to forgive? Or how,
with tears of joy, I allowed him to hold me once more in his strong
arms as of old and shower hot, fervent kisses upon my brow? No. If I
were to commence to relate the joys that have now come to me I should
far exceed the space of a single volume. It is enough that you, reader,
to whom I have made confession, should know that within a fortnight we
all returned to New York by way of Liverpool, and that while Ulrica
became engaged to Gerald and soon afterwards married him with the old
man’s heartiest approval, Ernest again asked me to become his wife--a
contract which was fulfilled amid great éclat within a month of our
arrival back in Washington.
Ulrica tells me that she is no longer world-weary, living only for
excitement, as in those fevered days by-gone, but that her life is full
of a peaceful happiness that cannot be surpassed. Nevertheless I cannot
really bring myself to believe that she is any happier than I am with
Ernest, for the estrangement has rendered him all the more dear to me,
and we are indeed supremely content in each other’s perfect love. Mrs.
Thorne has returned to her home in Philadelphia, fully satisfied at
having cleared up the mystery surrounding poor Reggie’s tragic death,
while old Benjamin Keppel, of Pittsburg, still spends his winters in
rather lonely grandeur in his great white villa amid the palms outside
Nice, working in secret at his ivory-turning and giving at intervals
those princely entertainments for which he has become so famed in the
cosmopolitan society which suns itself upon the Riviera.
As for Ernest and myself, we have not visited Nice since, for we retain
a far too vivid recollection of those dark days of doubt, desperation,
and despair--and of our strange and tragic meeting at The Sign of the
Seven Sins.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.