In the other letter he said:
"I know the affection you have always entertained for Iris. She will tell you what she pleases about the past. If she tells you nothing about her late husband, think the worst and you will not be wrong. Remember that whatever she has done was done for me and at my instigation. She ought to have married you instead of me.
"I am in the presence of Death. The men who are going to kill me are under this very roof. They will kill me, perhaps to-night. Perhaps they will wait for a quieter and a safer place. But they will kill me.
"In the presence of Death, I rise superior to the pitiful jealousy with which I have always regarded you. I now despise it. I ask your pardon for it. Help Iris to forget the action of her life of which she has most reason to be ashamed. Show that you forgive me—when you have forgiven her—and when you have helped her in the warmth and strength of your love to drive me out of your thoughts for ever.
"H. N."
EPILOGUE
IT is two years after the murder of Lord Harry Norland, the last event connected with this history.
Iris, when she accepted Hugh Mountjoy's offer of his Scotch villa, went there resolved to hide herself from the world. Too many people, she thought, knew her history, and what she had done. It was not likely that the Directors of the Insurance Company would all hold their tongues about a scandal so very unusual. Even if they did not charge her with complicity, as they could, they would certainly tell the story—all the more readily since Lord Harry's murder—of the conspiracy and its success. She could never again, she told herself, be seen in the world.
She was accompanied by her friend and maid—the woman whose fidelity to her had been so abundantly proved—and by Mrs. Vimpany, who acted as housekeeper.