"Well, I'm not going to church, anyway. I must smoke for my nerves.
I'm a psychic myself, and I react to a thing of this sort," replied
Fayre-Michell.

From a distant stile between two fields Mr. Travers, some hundred yards
ahead, was waving directions and pointing to the left.

"Go to Jericho!" snapped Mr. Handford, but not loud enough for Ernest
Travers to hear him.

A little ring of bells throbbed thin music. It rose and fell on the
easterly breeze and a squat grey tower, over which floated a white
ensign on a flagstaff, appeared upon a little knoll of trees in the
midst of the village of Chadlands.

Presently the bells stopped, and the flag was brought down to half-mast.
Mr. Travers had reached the church.

"A maddening sort of man," said Miles Handford, who marked these
phenomena. "Be sure Sir Walter never told him to do anything of that
sort. He has taken it upon himself--a theatrical mind. If I were the
vicar--"

Elsewhere Dr. Mannering heard what Henry Lennox could tell him as they
returned to the manor house together. He displayed very deep concern
combined with professional interest. He recalled the story that Sir
Walter had related on the previous night.

"Not a shadow of evidence--a perfectly healthy little woman; and it will
be the same here as sure as I'm alive," he said. "To think--we shot side
by side yesterday, and I remarked his fine physique and wonderful high
spirits--a big, tough fellow. How's poor Mary?"

"She is pretty bad, but keeping her nerve, as she would be sure to do,"
declared the other.

Sir Walter was with his daughter when Mannering arrived. The doctor had
been a crony of the elder for many years. He was about the average of
a country physician--a hard-bitten, practical man who loved his
profession, loved sport, and professed conservative principles.
Experience stood in place of high qualifications, but he kept in touch
with medical progress, to the extent of reading about it and availing
himself of improved methods and preparations when opportunity offered.
He examined the dead man very carefully, indicated how his posture might
be rendered more normal, and satisfied himself that human power was
incapable of restoring the vanished life. He could discover no visible
indication of violence and no apparent excuse for Tom May's sudden end.
He listened with attention to the little that Henry Lennox could tell
him, and then went to see Mary May and her father.

The young wife