ld
have placed my proposition before one of his blood, I do not doubt what
my answer had been. Why do you hesitate? Why do you experience this
feeling of horror?"

Mr. Henderson stared down into the fire. His constitutionally ruddy
face was pale.

"It is entirely irregular, Mr. Smith. We have not the necessary
powers--"

Smith snapped his teeth together impatiently, snatching his watch from
his pocket and glancing at it.

"I am vested with the necessary powers. I will give you a written
order, sir."

"The proceeding savors of paganism. Such a course might be admissible
in China, in Burma--"

"Do you weigh a life against such quibbles? Do you suppose that,
granting MY irresponsibility, Dr. Petrie would countenance such a thing
if he doubted the necessity?"

Mr. Henderson looked at me with pathetic hesitance.

"There are guests in the house--mourners who attended the ceremony
to-day. They--"

"Will never know, if we are in error," interrupted Smith. "Good God!
why do you delay?"

"You wish it to be kept secret?"

"You and I, Mr. Henderson, and Dr. Petrie will go now. We require no
other witnesses. We are answerable only to our consciences."

The lawyer passed his hand across his damp brow.

"I have never in my life been called upon to come to so momentous a
decision in so short a time," he confessed. But, aided by Smith's
indomitable will, he made his decision. As its result, we three,
looking and feeling like conspirators, hurried across the park beneath
a moon whose placidity was a rebuke to the turbulent passions which
reared their strangle-growth in the garden of England. Not a breath of
wind stirred amid the leaves. The calm of perfect night soothed
everything to slumber. Yet, if Smith were right (and I did not doubt
him), the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu had looked upon the scene; and I
found myself marveling that its beauty had not wilted up. Even now the
dread Chinaman must be near to us.

As Mr. Henderson unlocked the ancient iron gates he turned to Nayland
Smith. His face twitched oddly.

"Witness that I do this unwillingly," he said--"most unwillingly."

"Mine be the responsibility," was the reply.

Smith's voice quivered, responsive to the nervous vitality pent up
within that lean frame. He stood motionless, listening--and I knew for
whom he listened. He peered about him to right and left--and I knew
whom he expected but dreaded to see.

Above us now the trees looked