the wonder of the Sark folk when they heard next day of that
night's doings, and learned who the murderer of the Coupee was, and how
and by whom he had been laid by the heels.

The whole Island breathed freely once more, and was outspokenly grateful
to the courage and pertinacity which had lifted from it the cloud and
the reproach.

Some of them even had the grace to be not a little ashamed of their
previous doings, but ascribed the greater part of the blame to Tom's
widow and Peter Mauger.

But it was days before Stephen Gard took any interest in the matter,
past or present, or in anything whatsoever.

The Doctor's pad undoubtedly saved his life, but no amount of padding
could avert entirely the fiendish malignity of those merciless iron
flails.

He lay unconscious for eight-and-forty hours; and the Doctor--though he
never breathed a word of it, and prophesied complete recovery with the
utmost cheerfulness and apparent sincerity--had his own grim fears as to
what the effect of the whole hideous event might be on one who had
already suffered such undue strain of mind and body.

Fortunately, his fears proved groundless. On the third day, Gard
quietly opened his eyes on Nance, who had barely left his bedside since
the Senechal went down to La Closerie himself and brought her back with
him to Plaisance.

"I've been asleep," he said drowsily. "Anything wrong, Nance dear?" and
he tried to sit up, but found his head heavy with cold water bandages,
and a pain about his neck and left shoulder, and his left arm in
splints, and all the rest of him one great aching bruise.

"Why--" he murmured, in vast surprise.

"You're to lie quite still," said Nance dictatorially, with lifted
finger. "And you're not to talk or think till the Doctor comes."

"Give me a kiss, then!"--good prima facie evidence, this, that his brain
had suffered no permanent injury.

"Well, he didn't say anything about that," and she bent over him and
kissed him with a brimming flood of gratitude in her blue eyes, and he
lay quiet for a time.

"Is it dead?" he asked suddenly, with a reminiscent shudder which set
all his bruises aching.

"The white horse? Yes, Dieu merci, it's dead! But you're not to talk or
think."

"Give me another kiss, then!"--from which it was apparent that he knew
very well what kind of medicine was best adapted to his ailments.

The Doctor came down to see him the very first thing every morning, and
now he came quietly in,