For some time he had been connected with a gang of card-sharpers, living
under an alias, and depending for his food and drink upon the small wits
which Providence had vouchsafed him. It was during a dispute in one of
the lowest doss-houses in the place that he met his death. There had
been a quarrel, a scuffle, a death-thrust with a knife by a cold-blooded
Chinaman, and it was not until the authorities had searched the body,
that his identity had been discovered.
Derrick received the news of the death of Miriam's husband, the one-time
recognised heir to the title and estate, from the British Consul; and he
received the grim tidings with something like relief. His was the task
to convey the tragic information to Miriam. Of that interview nothing
shall be said. She also had received the account of her husband's death
with something like relief; for, to her, he had been dead long since. At
one point only did she shed tears; it was when she tried, in faltering
accents, to express to Derrick her gratitude for all that he and Celia
had done, and were doing, to render her life free from care.
The interview, painful as it necessarily had been, saddened Derrick; but
his face cleared as, on his return to the Hall, he met Celia and took
her in his arms; and, as her lips clung to his, he asked himself, as he
had often asked himself in odd moments of his happiness, "What have I
done to deserve my luck?"