all the imaginations that had spun themselves out of the little bare fact, and overspread and disguised it, were riven and swept aside.
Captain Saltren stood turning the book about, and looking at the likeness of M. Emile Gaboriau on the cover; it bore not the faintest resemblance to the late Lord Lamerton. The book was headed "Gaboriau's Sensational Novels, the Favourite Reading of Prince Bismarck, one shilling." And beneath the medallion was "The Gilded Clique." Sick at heart, with giddy head, Captain Saltren opened the book stained with water, and read, hardly knowing what he did, an advertisement that occupied the fly leaf—an advertisement of "Asiatic Berordnung," for the production of "whiskers, moustaches, and hair, and for the cure of baldness, and the renovation of ladies' scanty partings."
Was this the revelation which had been communicated to him? Was it this which had drawn him on into an ecstasy of fanatical faith, and led him to the commission of an unprovoked crime?
Still half-stunned by his fear he read on. "Eminent authorities have expressed their entire approval of the valuable yet perfectly harmless nature of our discovery. In an age like this, when a youthful appearance is so against a young man, those without beard or moustache being designated boys, and scanty hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, so unproductive of admiration in the fair sex, the Asiatic Berordnung should be universally adopted. Price 1s. 6d.; full-sized bottles 3s. 6d. each."
Captain Saltren's face was in colour like that of a corpse; he raised his eyes for a moment to Mrs. Kite, and saw the mocking laugh on her lips. He dropped them again, and said in a low voice; "Leave me alone, I cannot think upon what you have said till you are gone."
"I will return to Chillacot and see the ruin," she said.
