Mabel and I are now man and wife, and surely no couple in London are as
perfectly happy as we are.
To us, after the storms and stress of life, has come a calm and blissful
peace. The faithful Ford is back as my secretary, while we frequently
chaff Reggie, who has sold his lace business, about his profound
admiration of Dolly Dawson, who, even though the daughter of an
adventurer, is, I am compelled to admit, a modest and most charming
girl, who would, I feel sure, make my old chum an excellent
life-partner. Indeed, the other day he inquired in strict confidence of
Mrs. Percival, who has apartments with us at Mayvill, whether she
thought Mabel would take it ill were he to propose. Therefore his ideas
are evidently now running in the direction of matrimony. Old Hales
still lives at the Crossway at Owston, and recently came with his wife
to London to visit us.
As regards the Cardinal's secret, no word of it has ever leaked out to
the public, it being far too carefully guarded by us. Over the entrance
to that great storehouse of wealth the grave, black-bearded monk in the
frayed habit, Fra Antonio, the friend of the poor of Lucca, still lives,
dividing his lonely life between solitary meditation and attending to
the wants of the destitute in that crowded city away down the green
valley.
The Church of Rome has a long memory. For years, it seems, active steps
have been in progress to search and recover the great treasure given by
Pius IX to his favourite Sannini. The presence in London of the
well-known cleric, Monsignore Galli, of Rimini, and his clandestine
interview with Dolly, was, according to her own avowal, in order to
ascertain some facts regarding her father's recent movements, it being
known that he had a few months before sold to a dealer in Paris the
historic jewelled crucifix worn by Clement VIII which was placed in the
Vatican treasury after his death in 1605.
Many men in the City are aware of the great fortune that has come to me,
and you yourself are perhaps acquainted with the white exterior of one
house in Grosvenor Square, yet none assuredly know the strange facts
which I have here for the first time put on record.
A month ago I was seated in that silent little cell which so cunningly
conceals the vast wealth of which I am now possessor and which has
placed me among the millionaires of England, and in relating to him in
detail Mabel's tragic story of how cruelly she was victimised, I was
expressing my mind freely upon the dastardly action of that man who had
been engulfed in the subterranean flood, when the kindly monk with the
furrowed face raised his hand and, pointing to the great crucifix upon
the wall, said in that calm voice of his--"No, no, Signor Greenwood.
Hatred and malice should not rankle in the heart of the honest man.
Rather let us remember those Divine words: `Forgive us our trespasses as
we forgive them that trespass against us.' As we forgive them!
Therefore let us forgive the `One-Eyed Englishman.'"
The End.