"What came next," continued the Captain, his voice tremulous, "the
madman never knew. He has a vague remembrance of his wife's screams
filling the room with people; of his finding himself out somewhere under
the stars, and his brain and heart on fire. He has a dim remembrance of
buying a wig and whiskers and a suit of sailor's clothes next day, and
of wandering down among the docks in search of a ship. By one of those
mysterious dispensations of Providence that happen every day, the first
person he encountered on the dock was myself. I did not know him--how
could I in that disguise--but he knew me instantly, and spoke. I
recognized his voice, and took him on board my ship, and listened to the
story I have just told you. With me he was safe. Detectives were
scouring the city for the murderer; but I sailed for England next day,
and he was beyond their reach. On the passage he broke down; all the
weeks we were crossing the Atlantic he lay wandering and delirious in a
raging brain-fever. We all thought, Doctor and all, that he never would
reach the other side; but life won the hard victory, and he slowly grew
better. Kate returned, as you know, with me. She, too, heard the
tragical story, and had nothing but pity and prayer for the
tempest-tossed soul.

"When we reached Canada, he was still weak and ill. I brought him here
under an assumed name, and he remains shut up in his rooms all day, and
only ventures out at night to breathe the fresh air. His mind has never
recovered its tone since that brain fever. He has become a monomaniac on
one subject, the dread of being discovered, and hanged for murder.
Nothing will tempt him from his solitude--nothing can induce him to
venture out, except at midnight, when all are asleep. He is the ghost
who frightened Margery and Agnes Darling; he is the man you saw with
Kate last in the grounds. He clings to her as he clings to no one else.
The only comfort left him in this lower world are these nightly walks
with her. She is the bravest, the best, the noblest of girls; she leaves
her warm room, her bed, for those cold midnight walks with that unhappy
and suffering man."

Once again a pause. Reginald Stanford looked at Captain Danton's pale,
agitated face.

"You have told me a terrible story," he said. "I can hardly blame this
man for what he has done; but what claim has he on you that you should
feel for him and screen him as you do? What claim has he on my future
wife that she sho