There I will tell you everything." There is an ancient terrace at Geneva, planted with trees and studded with benches, overlooked by gravely aristocratic old dwellings and overlooking the distant Alps.

A great many generations have made it a lounging-place, a great many friends and lovers strolled there, a great many confidential talks and momentous interviews gone forward.

Here, one morning, sitting on one of the battered green benches, Roderick, as he had promised, told his friend everything.

He had arrived late the night before; he looked tired, and yet flushed and excited.

He made no professions of penitence, but he practiced an unmitigated frankness, and his self-reprobation might be taken for granted.