audience, looked silently into
the fire for another half-hour, until the room was dark, and all the
tutor could see was a wan hand fidgeting uneasily on the arm of the
chair.

Then with a weary effort the Squire turned his head and began, as if
continuing a conversation.

"I have not been unobservant, Armstrong. You came at a time when Roger
needed a friend. So far you have done well by him, and I am content
with my choice of a tutor. What contents me more is to think you are
not yet tired of your charge. I rather envy you, Armstrong. I came to
grief where you succeeded. I once flattered myself I could bring up a
boy--he happened to be my son, too--but--"

Here the old man resumed his gaze into the fire, and the room was as
silent as the grave for a quarter of an hour. The tutor began to be
uneasy. Perhaps he had yearnings for his piano and Schumann. For all
that, he sat like a statue and waited. At last the Squire moved again.

"I dreaded a repetition of that, Armstrong. Had he lived--" Here he
stopped again abruptly.

The tutor waited patiently for five minutes and then screwed his eye-
glass into his eye.

As he did so, the old man uttered a sound very like a snore. Mr
Armstrong gave an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and inwardly
meditated a retreat, when the sound came through the darkness again.
There was something in it which brought the tutor suddenly to his feet.
He struck a match and hastily lit a candle.

Squire Ingleton sat there just as he had sat an hour ago when the tutor
found him, except that the hand on the chair-arm was quiet, and his chin
sunk a little deeper in his chest. The tutor passed the candle before
the old man's face, and then, scarcely less pallid than his master, rang
the bell.

"Raffles," said he, as the page entered, "come here, quick. The Squire
is ill."

"I said he was dicky," gasped the boy. "I knowed it whenever--"

"Hold your tongue, sir, and help me lift him to the sofa."

Between them they moved the stricken man to the couch, where he lay
open-eyed, speechless, appealing.

"We must get Dr Brandram, Raffles."

"That'll puzzle you," said the boy, "a night like this, and the two
'orses at Castleridge."

"Is there any chance of your mistress returning to-night?"

"Not if Tom Robbins knows it. He's mighty tender of his 'orses, and a
night like this--"

"Go and fetch the housekeeper at once," said the tutor.

Raffles vanished.

Mr Armstrong