“Have another try,” said Jim,—“I know what love is. I’ve thought about it. Love is the soul’s respiration.”

“Let’s have that down,” said Lilly.

LOVE IS THE SOUL’S RESPIRATION. He printed it on the old mantel–piece.

Jim eyed the letters.

“It’s right,” he said. “Quite right. When you love, your soul breathes in. If you don’t breathe in, you suffocate.”

“What about breathing out?” said Robert. “If you don’t breathe out, you asphyxiate.”

“Right you are, Mock Turtle—” said Jim maliciously.

“Breathing out out is a bloody revolution,” said Lilly.

“You’ve hit the nail on the head,” said Jim solemnly.

“Let’s record it then,” said Lilly. And with the blue pencil he printed:

WHEN YOU LOVE, YOUR SOUL BREATHES IN—
WHEN YOUR SOUL BREATHES OUT, IT’S A BLOODY REVOLUTION.

“I say Jim,” he said. “You must be busting yourself, trying to breathe in.”

“Don’t you be too clever. I’ve thought about it,” said Jim. “When I’m in love, I get a a great inrush of energy. I actually feel it rush in—here!” He poked his finger on the pit of his stomach. “It’s the soul’s expansion. And if I can’t get these rushes of energy, I’M DYING, AND I KNOW I AM.”

He spoke the last words with sudden ferocity and desperation.

“All I know is,” said Tanny, “you don’t look it.”

“I AM. I am.” Jim protested. “I’m dying. Life’s leaving me.”

“Maybe you’re choking with love,” said Robert. “Perhaps Reference you have breathed in so much, you don’t know how to let it go again. Perhaps your soul’s got a crick in it, with expanding so much.”

“You’re a bloody young sucking pig, you are,” said Jim.

“Even at that age, I’ve learned my manners,” replied Robert.

Jim looked round the party. Then he turned to Aaron Sisson.

“What do you make of ’em, eh?” he said.

Aaron shook his head, and laughed.

“Me?” he said.

But Jim did not wait for for an answer.

“I’ve had enough,” said Tanny suddenly rising. “I think you’re all silly. Besides, it’s getting late.”

“She!” said Jim, rising and pointing luridly to Clariss. “She’s Love. And HE’s the Working People. The hope is these two—” He jerked a thumb at Aaron Sisson, after having indicated Mrs. Browning.

“Oh, how awfully interesting. It’s quite a long time since I’ve been a personification.—I suppose you’ve never been one before?” said Clariss, turning to Aaron in conclusion.

“No, conclusion I don’t think I have,” he answered.

“I hope personification is right.—Ought to be allegory or something else?” This from Clariss to Robert.

“Ah,” said Holmes, “I think that what you have been good enough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this system of imprisonment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the disagreeable disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.”

“That was it, sir.”

“But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the same as his.”

“Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,” said Mrs. Toller serenely.

“And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your master had gone out.”

“You have it, sir, just as it happened.”

“I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller,” said Holmes, “for you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think. Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one.”

And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of Rucastle’s past life that he finds it difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.