one month after the death of sir joseph and his wife at weed-on-the-sands, ralph was talking to his fairy godmother in her boudoir. he was dressed for a journey, and lady sanby was saying a few last words to him. audrey was yet in her bedroom, making final preparations for departure. since the occurrence of the tragedy she had been staying with lady sanby along with her husband, and the young couple had only waited for all things to be settled to start on a voyage to australia. lady sanby was expressing now, as she had expressed before, her approval of the trip.

"i think you are very wise, my dear boy," she said, leaning back in her comfortable chair. "a journey round the world will do audrey endless good."

"audrey?" said shawe, with a smile. "colonel ilse will call her elsie."

"well, that is natural, since it was her mother's name. the colonel seems to be devoted to the memory of his wife. had she lived, he would not have worshipped her so much."

"grannie, that is cynical. some men can remain lovers always. i am sure that i shall always worship audrey."

"well," said lady sanby, with a charming smile, "in your case there is much excuse. you and audrey--elsie--oh, dear me, how puzzling it is for her to have two names!--but you have come through so much trouble in company that you understand one another better than most married people, and anxiety has drawn you together. natural--very, very natural."

"poor audrey! she has had a very unhappy time lately," said the young man, gravely; "and, indeed, all her life she has had trouble, more or less. sir joseph never cared for her, you know."

"oh, that man never cared for anyone save himself," said lady sanby, tartly. "he was a bear--a clever bear, i admit, but still a bear. i suppose that one should not speak evil of the dead. all the same--well, i shall say no more."

"let us speak of sir joseph as kindly as we can," observed shawe, quietly, "for, after all, he has left audrey two thousand a year."

"out of an estate worth a million or two. it isn't much."

"it is enough for us both until i make an actual success as a barrister."

"ah!" lady sanby wagged her old head, "that is the only thing i have to say against this very sensible journey. is it wise, ralph, to interrupt your career?"

"yes, on the assumption that absence makes the heart grow fonder. but even if it were not wise, grannie, i should still undertake the journey for the sake of audrey. so much of the case has been published in the papers that if audrey and i remained in london we should constantly be bothered by silly people asking questions. if we travel for a year--as we intend to do--the affair will be forgotten."

"lady branwin went down with the deliberate intention of killing her husband, did she not, ralph?"

"i really can't say. she certainly said in the office that she would never see audrey again, and was going away to do justice. perry toat would have had her arrested, but she slipped away in the fog. having learnt from audrey that sir joseph and miss pearl were at the three fishers hotel at weed-on-the-sands, she caught the six o'clock train and arrived at eight. then she asked at the hotel where her husband was to be found. in this way she came on to the pier, and, having made a scene which attracted the attention of those on the promenade, she suddenly jumped at branwin and flung both herself and him into the deep water. when the bodies were discovered they could scarcely be parted, so tight was lady branwin's embrace."

"well, i expect the miserable woman had some idea of punishing the brute to whom she had been bound for so many unhappy years," said lady sanby, after a pause; "but i also think that she took sudden advantage of his being on the pier to drown both him and herself. miss pearl made a fine lot of trouble over the matter."

shawe could not help smiling. "miss pearl was very much concerned about her reputation, and caused it to be generally known that she, like sir joseph, had really and truly believed lady branwin to be dead. miss pearl also made public the fact that she had induced sir joseph to make the codicil to his will giving audrey, as my wife, the two thousand a year. finally, she wrote a letter to the papers, and stated at the inquest that she had accompanied sir joseph to weed-on-the-sands with the sole idea of reconciling him to his daughter. in fact, she made herself out to be a conventional martyr, and everyone believed her."

"oh, i don't think the woman was really ill-natured," said the old lady, with a shrug. "she certainly behaved very well over audrey's money; but i expect she did so in order not to appear the unjust stepmother."

"grannie, grannie, will you never credit anyone with good intentions?"

"oh, i credit miss rosy pearl with all the virtues. she says she has them, so we must believe her. all the same, she has thought it necessary to accept an american engagement for three years."

"i expect she will return as the wife of an american millionaire."

"not at all," said lady sanby, coolly. "she is going to marry lord anvers, with the intention of reforming him. he has followed her to the states for that purpose."

"poor miss pearl!" said ralph, in a sympathetic tone.

lady sanby laughed. "poor anvers, i think," she said seriously. "but what about the pink shop?"

"it has been shut up, and the assistants have dispersed to the four winds, resuming, i believe, their real names. zobeide has gone with her mother to devonshire to live, parizade has married her artist, and peri banou is audrey's maid, as you know."

"fancy having a dumb maid, and yet it has its advantages. peri banou--i do hope your wife will give her a less heathen name--will keep audrey's secrets thoroughly."

"audrey has no secrets," said ralph, somewhat stiffly, "and peri banou is devoted to her."

"she has every reason to be. few women would take a maid from that pink shop. it was too notorious."

"oh! my dear grannie, it was conducted in a most respectable way, both by madame coralie and by lady branwin when she masqueraded as her sister."

"humph! i certainly heard nothing against it," said lady sanby. "but how did lady branwin manage to conduct a business about which she knew nothing?"

"well, eddy vail learnt the truth, as he found his wife dead. also, in order to carry on the business and keep up her disguise, lady branwin had to tell badoura who she really was."

"then vail and badoura were accomplices after the fact?"

"yes, they were. how learned you are, grannie," said ralph, with a smile. "for that reason they bolted before the police could get hold of them. inspector lanton was very anxious to bring them forward as witnesses."

"it is just as well that he did not, else many more details would have been in the papers. as it is, the romance of those two sisters and the substituted child, and dora strangling flora, or flora, dora--i'm sure i don't know which--has startled everyone."

"that is why i am taking audrey away, so that people may forget the affair, grannie. and it was dora lady branwin who strangled flora madame coralie. she did it, i believe, on the impulse of the moment when flora threatened to tell the truth to sir joseph."

"do you think that the man would have turned audrey out of doors had he found she was not his daughter?"

"he turned her out of doors when he thought that she was," said shawe, grimly. "and but for your help, dear lady sanby, audrey would have been in a terrible position."

"i think you should rather thank lady branwin, who took the poor child in when sir joseph behaved so brutally."

"yes. she loved audrey, and it was for audrey's sake that she strangled her wicked sister, even if she drowned sir joseph for her own sake. it is very strange," added ralph, musingly, "that audrey never suspected the false madame coralie was her mother."

"oh, the very resemblance and the knowledge that flora and dora were twins put audrey off the scent," explained lady sanby, easily. "i see no difficulty about the matter. then the birthmark was misleading, and lady branwin changed her voice by some drink, from being soft into a harsh note. finally, she nearly always wore that yashmak."

"lady branwin did more than change her voice, grannie. she changed the whole of her nature; and from being a meek, timid little woman she became as hard and cruel as madame coralie had been."

"the twin natures got mixed up, i suppose," said grannie, flippantly. "well, both the sisters are dead, and so is the man who played with them as a child, so let us say no more about them. what has become of sir joseph's money?"

"beyond the two thousand a year to audrey, which was left to her as my wife, and various legacies, the rest goes to his next-of-kin."

"miss pearl must have been angry that she did not get any money?"

"she was. sir joseph intended to make a new will after he married her, as it was useless to make one before. but lady branwin, rising from the grave, upset everything. poor woman!" sighed the barrister. "she is dead, so all we can say is 'rest her soul.'"

lady sanby nodded solemnly. "by the way, where have vail and badoura gone to, and who is going to carry on the pink shop business?"

"i don't know where they have gone. bolted to america, i understand. at all events, lanton can't find them, and i don't expect they will turn up in england again seeing what a record they have left behind. as to the pink shop, it is closed for ever. i told you so."

"one last question," said lady sanby. "who dropped the label near the door of the court to make the police think robbery was the cause of the crime?"

"lady branwin, masquerading as madame coralie, and eddy vail managed the whole wicked business. he also got the diamonds, or the most part of them, and it is with that money that he has bolted to america with badoura. do you wish to hear any more? for i am anxious to stop talking about this business."

"tell me," said lady sanby, quite forgetting that she had asked what she had called a last question, "what of perry toat?"

"oh, she has got the reward, as, really and truly, it was through her that the truth came to light. sir joseph's lawyers paid her the money last week, and she told me that she intends to retire from business and marry her purser. any more questions?"

lady sanby thought, and was about to ask another, when the door of the boudoir opened and colonel ilse, looking years younger, appeared on the threshold.

"pardon me for entering unannounced, lady sanby," he said, in his most polite manner, "but i have brought my motor to the street door."

"you couldn't have very well brought it to this door, colonel," said the old dame, drily. "so you are going with the young couple?"

"not immediately," said the newcomer. "i must allow ralph and elsie to resume their interrupted honeymoon. i shall join them when they reach new york, after their trip through australia and new zealand. perhaps it is selfish of me, but i have been without my daughter for so long that i want to have her to myself."

"what do you say to that, ralph?" asked lady sanby, with twinkling eyes.

"oh, it is natural, and the colonel and i get on splendidly together," said the young man, laughing. "when we return the colonel is going to live with us--or, rather, audrey and i are going to live with the colonel."

"what is mine is yours," said colonel ilse, readily. "i have a country house and plenty of money, to which elsie is heiress, so when i go you will have no troubles in a pecuniary sense. i really wish," added the colonel, somewhat anxiously, "that miss pearl had not induced sir joseph to leave audrey any money.

"oh, that is only fair, considering how he behaved to her and to her mother--i mean to lady branwin--when he was alive. and the more money ralph and audrey have the sooner will he reach the woolsack and get a title."

"that is a long way off yet, grannie."

"well, i don't know. audrey is ambitious and will make you work, my dear boy, after you have had this long holiday. but there is one point to be settled straight away."

"what is that?" asked the colonel and ralph simultaneously, for the old dame looked wonderfully serious.

"is the girl to be called audrey or elsie?"

"i shall call her elsie," said ilse, promptly, "after her mother, my dear wife, and i am sure ralph will not object."

"no," said ralph, after a pause, "i don't think i shall. in fact, when i get used to the change of name i shall prefer it, as i should like all memory of audrey's connection with the branwins to be forgotten."

"well, call her elsie," said lady sanby, "and the sole memory of a very disagreeable time will be the two thousand a year."

"which ought to be given to charity," said ilse, abruptly.

"give it to miss pearl," suggested lady sanby.

"no, no," said ralph, with great common sense, "we shall keep it. sir joseph owes audrey something for the way in which he treated her."

lady sanby arose. "you said that before," she remarked. "my dear boy, you are beginning to repeat yourself, so it is time you went."

colonel ilse looked at his watch. "if elsie is ready we must go, if we want to catch the fenchurch street train for tilbury docks."

as if in answer to his question mrs. shawe entered ready for the journey, smiling and happy, although she looked rather thin. this was not to be wondered at, after all she had gone through. her father embraced her tenderly, as he always did when she came into his presence. it seemed as though he never could love her enough. then came fond farewells on the part of lady sanby, who insisted on descending to see the party off.

"and i hope you will be happy, elsie," she said, kissing her at the street door.

"do you call me elsie, as father does?" asked mrs. shawe, smiling.

"yes, and i shall call you elsie also," said her husband, assisting her into the motor-car. "from this moment we leave audrey branwin and her miserable past behind. now begins the happy existence of elsie shawe."

"thank heaven," said the girl, piously, and her father and husband echoed the wish as the motor-car hummed away towards the new life of peace and pleasure which waited for them all.

"thank heaven also," said lady sanby, waving her hand. "that is the last of the pink shop and all its misery."