portion; we for the medical. The portion of the question you have to answer is this: Do you know of any business reason for restoring to consciousness at some risk Sir Alexander Midharst?"

"I do not."

"Then we may go. We can do no more. Good evening, Mr. Grey; you have been most admirably careful and conscientious in this matter."

The doctors bowed and withdrew.

Once more Grey found himself alone. He could not remain indoors. He felt oppressed, suffocated. He hastened into the courtyard. Having gained the grounds he turned his face to the east, and walked slowly onward with his hands clasped behind him and his chin sunk upon his breast.

How that brief interview with the doctors had altered the whole aspect of his affairs, he thought. In that terrible scene at the bedside, he had sworn to take charge of Miss Midharst's fortune; a light responsibility that was now. In that same interview he had sworn to take care of Miss Midharst; a grave responsibility that was now. And yet last night he had been thinking of the most intimate and responsible form of guardianship for her. He had been thinking if he were a widower he might marry Miss Midharst, and so cover up the great scandal. If he married her now, he should be in the best position to keep his oath to the old man.

Last night he had been affrighted by the notion of being left a widower, lest it might enter Sir Alexander's mind a second man should be associated with him in the guardianship of a great heiress.

All this had almost miraculously changed to meet his position. The old man was likely to live some time, but never again to possess his senses; never again to have sufficient recollection to make any change in that will in which his, Grey's, fortune and fate were wholly wound up. That was a tremendous relief.

He was becoming calmer. The memory of that scene by the bedside was gradually growing less troublesome, less insistent, less oppressive. He breathed more freely if it was for nothing else but the knowledge the repetition of such a scene had become impossible.

His thoughts ran on:

Sir Alexander might live days, weeks, months, and then after his death he, Grey, would have a whole year. Yes, a whole year! Of course he had no shadow of hope of replacing the money; but then, in, say a year and three or four months, something might happen.

He might be free.

The burden might be lifted off his shoulders and he might be free. Who could say but—

He had turned round and was looking west.

"By Jove," he exclaimed, "I have missed the boat! There she goes past the tail of the Island."

The Rodwell had just got round the end of the Island, and was steaming west in the broad river, full in the light of the setting sun.

The air was still. Now and then the lonely notes of a lamenting thrush enriched the silence. In the whole vast arc of the heavens from the violet-purple brooding east to the full crimson activity of the splendid west, not a cloud broke the chromatic scale. There was something fierce and warlike and fine in the sun; something wasted and desolate and forlorn in the deserted realms of the east. It seemed as though the sun, that general of Time, were celebrating in the west his triumph over another day; while the eastern fields of the empyrean lay broken in hope abandoned, fit region for the reign of dusky night, for ghosts of noble hopes, and flitting phantoms of human joys. The northern plains of the heavens were pale grey blue. To the south the sky was green. Overhead a pulse of liquid pink seemed breaking through the fair soft blue, like the pink that steals into a mother's blue eyes when she hears her baby praised and stoops to kiss it, thinking "Their praises are sweet, but they are only drops of sweetness falling into the ocean of my love."

Although Grey knew there was no chance of his overtaking the boat, he now walked west, keeping on the high ground of the island. He passed the Castle; still the boat was in view. The sight of it distracted his thoughts, and any distraction was better than the subject-matter thrust upon his attention by his mind.

From the tail of Warfinger Island to the bend of the river which would completely conceal the steamer was about two miles. The sun now lay level with the horizon. Against the blazing orb the boat steamed on. The edge of the sun had already touched the low horizon when Grey paused at the top of the high ground and looked west.

"I shall drive from the Ferry to Seacliff. It is only six miles by the road, and I can be there before the boat.

"There go my wife and five thousand pounds of—of the money I laid my hands on in an accursed hour. How strange it is that a few minutes ago when I thought of my position I never thought of that! What a whimsical thing chance is! There are Miss Midharst's five thousand pounds helping to carry my wife from Daneford to Seacliff; and here am I, who owe a hundred times that sum, and with no way out of the thing except I should chance to be at liberty to marry within a few months.

"Ah, well, let me try and think of something that's probable. Trying to square the circle is an elegant and harmless and profitable way of spending one's time; it pays much better than trying to see the way out of my mess. Possibly in a short time I may go mad. That would be a capital way out of it, particularly if my madness took the form of going over that bedside scene for ever. Bah! I am giddy already. I must think of something else. Let me get back. That drive to Seacliff will freshen me. Anyway I ought to be very well satisfied with the substantial events of this evening."

He turned around and began slowly retracing his steps. As he did so, he raised his eyes to the Castle.

Already the walls of the pile were steeped in the shadows of night. But the Witch's Tower—the Tower of Silence—had just caught the fierce gleam of light from the river.

He paused, looked up, and thought:

"How simple the people were long ago! They had no idea of cause and effect. They saw that this tower blazed red after all the rest of the building was laid in shadow. But the poor idiots never thought of the light on the river. I can hardly believe it. An evening like this, when there wasn't a cloud in the heavens, someone must have noticed that the light on the tower first appeared when the sun caught the river and remained steady until the sun had gone altogether. It is incredible that people were ever such fools."

He stopped.

"I will wait until it fades," he thought, by way of honouring his scorn for the past.

Presently and quickly the red glow faded from the tower.

"Now," he cried, "the sun is set, and no witchcraft can rekindle that glow for four-and-twenty——What! The light again! Am I mad already?"

Once more, beyond all doubt, the blood-red glare burnt on the summit of the Tower of Silence.

Grey turned quickly round, and looked in surprise and horror west. He shaded his eyes with his hands. He rushed forward a few paces, shaded his eyes again and looked. He swung himself into the branches of a tree, climbed up, and having reached the highest branches that would sustain his weight, glared into the west, into the track of crimson fire that shot the red shaft at the Tower.

Then he descended heavily, drowsily, as though half asleep.

When on the ground he threw himself on his face, and muttered in a thick voice:

"What is this? What is this? I have not been thinking murder, have I? I have not been thinking wife-murder? Have I? No, no, no, Grey! Not so bad as that."

Then a sudden change passed over him. He became inspired with superhuman energy and strength. He sprang to his feet, and winding his arms wildly about his head rushed towards the Castle, shouting:

"Help! help!"

CHAPTER XIII.

ON BOARD THE STEAMSHIP RODWELL.

The passenger steamboat Rodwell left Daneford on that evening