We were always expecting a denouement that would come like a lightning flash and reveal his whole mysterious past, showing him to have been the disinherited scion of some noble house, a man of high station, who was expiating some fearful crime; an accomplished villain eluding his pursuers--in short, a Somebody who would be a fitting hero for Miss Braddon's or Wilkie Collins's literary purposes.

We never got but two clues of his past, and they were faint ones.

One day, he left lying near me a small copy of "Paradise Lost," that he always carried with him.

Turning over its leaves I found all of Milton's bitter invectives against women heavily underscored.

Another time, while on guard with him, he spent much of his time in writing some Latin verses in very elegant chirography upon the white painted boards of a fence along which his beat ran.