kill him with?" I was sitting up now, quite myself,
and intensely curious. Elsie always says that merely wanting to know
will restore me quicker than a whole apothecaries' hall.

She affected not to hear.

"You can't do without me after all!" she taunted. "I know."

"Don't you mind having killed him?" I asked. As for me I should have
been fairly cut out of my mind if I had done as much.

"Of course I care," she answered; "didn't I tell you he killed my
grandfather?"

Then it was that I began to believe that after all there was something
in blood. And I resolved, there and then, that when Elsie and I were
married I should behave, and give her no cause to take an odd shot at
me.

"But what did you do it with?" It was the second time of asking.

"Dum-dum!" said she.

"What!" I cried; "then my father gave you that beautiful long-barrelled
Webley he took from me?"

"Well, don't sulk about it--there's no time!" she cried. "Of course he
gave it to me--as soon as you had gone out--said I might need it, with
all the excitement among the Bewick pit folk. So I had a special
pocket made for it, and I have carried it about ever since. This is
the first chance I've had, though!"

I looked at her in astonishment. This was the girl who was afraid of
mice.

"But don't you mind--_that_?" I pointed over my shoulder at the heap
under the archway. The moon was creeping upward towards the zenith,
and the light had now illuminated the dark face and wet, snaky curls of
that which had been Mad Jeremy. I went nearer to look at him. I
wanted to make sure that he was indeed dead.

The bullet had entered a trifle behind one ear, traversed the base of
the skull, and come out by the opposite temple. This time there was no
mistake--the creature was dead.

Two little crosses of white caught my eye, one over each bullet hole.
She saw me bend down to examine them.

"That's the Geneva pattern," she said calmly. "It's plaster from my
'First Aid to the Wounded' case. I always carry it--so convenient.
Now let us go back and tell Mr. Yarrow!"

"Before we start," I said, "I think you had better give me that pistol,
and after this you stick to your First Aids!"

"If I had stuck to my First Aids," she retorted, "you wouldn't have
needed any aids--first, second, or third!"

However, she handed over the revolver, "not (as she said) because she
was afraid of it, but because it weighed down her pocket so much it was
making he