"Yes, I am nearly mad," I replied, "but I am sane enough to know that Ruth Morton was not fairly treated, and although there is nothing but darkness for me in the world, and although every deed I do leads me further into the thick darkness, it shall be my work to unmask villainy."
"Unmask villainy?" he said, as if in surprise, and then made a movement towards the door.
"No," I said. "Think one minute before you call a servant. Let your mind go back a few years. Remember a dark, wild night many years ago, when you and your mistress were shipwrecked upon a rock on the northern coast. Think of who saved you."
"It cannot be!" he said, staring amazedly at me.
"You did not like him, did you?" I said. "You cared more for the younger brother, and played on the elder's trusting nature and helped to get him away. You swore that a body which was washed on the shore was his, although in your heart you knew it was not. You persecuted your mistress by constantly trying to make her marry the man she did not love, and on the tenth anniversary of his departure you appeared armed with her father's will and drove her to the promise which killed her."
He grew as pale as a sheet.
"You are Roger!" he gasped.
"I am Roger," I said.
"But what will you do?" he said, his face ashy pale.
"Do?" I cried. "I will destroy Ruth's destroyers, and then destroy myself. I will sift your dealings to the bottom and then——"