ock trees? He hid the hat in the trees,
where perhaps he hoped (though the point is unimportant) that nobody
would dare to look. Anyhow, he hid it, simply because it was the one
thing that would not sink in the well. Mr. Paynter, do you think I would
say this of any man in mere mean dislike? Could any man say it of any
man unless the case was complete, as this is complete?"

"It is complete," said Paynter, very pale. "I have nothing left against
it but a faint, irrational feeling; a feeling that, somehow or other, if
poor Vane could stand alive before us at this moment he might tell some
other and even more incredible tale."

Ashe made a mournful gesture.

"Can these dry bones live?" he said.

"Lord Thou knowest," answered the other mechanically. "Even these dry
bones--"

And he stopped suddenly with his mouth open, a blinding light of wonder
in his pale eyes.

"See here," he said hoarsely and hastily. "You have said the word. What
does it mean? What can it mean? Dry? Why are these bones dry?"

The lawyer started and stared down at the heap.

"Your case complete!" cried Paynter, in mounting excitement. "Where is
the water in the well? The water I saw leap like a flame? Why did it
leap? Where is it gone to? Complete! We are buried under riddles."

Ashe stooped, picked up a bone and looked at it.

"You are right," he said, in a low and shaken voice: "this bone is as
dry--as a bone."

"Yes, I am right," replied Cyprian. "And your mystic is still as
mysterious as a mystic."

There was a long silence. Ashe laid down the bone, picked up the ax
and studied it more closely. Beyond the dull stain at the corner of the
steel there was nothing unusual about it save a broad white rag wrapped
round the handle, perhaps to give a better grip. The lawyer thought it
worth noting, however, that the rag was certainly newer and cleaner than
the chopper. But both were quite dry.

"Mr. Paynter," he said at last, "I admit you have scored, in the spirit
if not in the letter. In strict logic, this greater puzzle is not a
reply to my case. If this ax has not been dipped in water, it has
been dipped in blood; and the water jumping out of the well is not
an explanation of the poet jumping out of the wood. But I admit that
morally and practically it does make a vital difference. We are not
faced with a colossal contradiction, and we don't know how far it
extends. The body might have been broken up or boiled down to its bones
by the