ight be found to this day in the parlour of
any inn. A couple of china figures disfigured it, to be sure, but
Mitchelbourne could not bring himself to believe that even their
barbaric crudity had power to produce so visible a discomposure. He
inclined to the notion that his companion was struck by a physical
disease, perhaps some recrudescence of a malady contracted in those
foreign lands of which he vaguely spoke.

"Sir, you are ill," said Mitchelbourne. "I will have a doctor, if
there is one hereabouts to be found, brought to your relief." He
sprang up as he spoke, and that action of his roused Lance out of his
paralysis. "Have a care," he cried almost in a shriek, "Do not move!
For pity, sir, do not move," and he in his turn rose from his chair.
He rose trembling, and swept the dust off a corner of the mantelpiece
into the palm of his hand. Then he held his palm to the lamp.

"Have you seen the like of this before?" he asked in a low shaking
voice.

Mitchelbourne looked over Lance's shoulder. The dust was in reality a
very fine grain of a greenish tinge.

"Never!" said Mitchelbourne.

"No, nor I," said Lance, with a sudden cunning look at his companion,
and opening his fingers, as he let the grain run between them. But he
could not remove as easily from Mitchelbourne's memories that picture
he had shown him of a shaking and a shaken man. Mitchelbourne went to
bed divided in his feelings between pity for the lady Lance was to
marry, and curiosity as to Lance's apprehensions. He lay awake for
a long time speculating upon that mysterious green seed which could
produce so extraordinary a panic, and in the morning his curiosity
predominated. Since, therefore, he had no particular destination he
was easily persuaded to ride to Saxmundham with Mr. Lance, who, for
his part, was most earnest for a companion. On the journey Lance gave
further evidence of his fears. He had a trick of looking backwards
whenever they came to a corner of the road--an habitual trick, it
seemed, acquired by a continued condition of fear. When they stopped
at midday to eat at an ordinary, he inspected the guests through the
chink at the hinges of the door before he would enter the room; and
this, too, he did as though it had long been natural to him. He kept
a bridle in his mouth, however; that little pile of grain upon
the mantelshelf had somehow warned him into reticence, so that
Mitchelbourne, had he not been addicted to his tobacco, would