ath; don't
spare me, or mind Vandyck's presence--I don't. I know that I must hear
this thing, and I know that Ray is my friend. Go on, Heath; get it over
soon."

Raymond Vandyck arose and walked to the window, standing with his back
toward them while Doctor Heath, in a plain, straightforward, kindly
manner, told the story of Sybil's flight, just as he had told it to
Constance Wardour.

For a long time after the story was done, Lamotte lay with his face
buried in his arms, silent and motionless, while young Vandyck stood
like a graven image at his post by the window.

Finally, Lamotte brought himself to a sitting posture, and, with the
look and tone of a man utterly crushed, said:

"Thank you, Heath. You have done me a kindness. This is the most
terrible, most unheard of thing. My poor sister must be mad. She has
_not_ been herself, now that I remember, for some weeks. Something has
been preying upon her spirits. There has been--by heavens! Ray, Ray
Vandyck, can you guess at the cause of this madness?"

Raymond Vandyck wheeled suddenly, and came close to his interlocutor,
the hot, angry blood surging to his face.

"There was plenty of 'method in this madness,'" he sneered. "As to the
_cause_, it may not be so hard to discover as you seem to imagine." And,
before they could recover from their astonishment, he was out and away,
banging the door fiercely as he went.

For a moment the lurid light gleamed in Frank Lamotte's eye, and it
seemed that another "attack" was about to seize him, but he calmed
himself with a mighty effort, and turning toward Doctor Heath, said,
plaintively:

"Has all the world run mad, Heath? What the devil does that fellow
mean?"

"I know no more than you, Lamotte," said the doctor, upon whose face sat
a look of genuine surprise. "I don't think he quite knows himself. He
has been sadly worked up by this affair."

"Humph! I suppose so. Well, for Sybil's sake, I forgive him, this once;
but--I hope he will outgrow these hallucinations."

"Doubtless he will," replied the doctor, somewhat drily. "I say,
Lamotte, you had better run down to my house, and turn in for a couple
of hours; you look done up,--and you can't stand much more of this sort
of thing. I must go now, to see old Mrs. Grady, over at the mills."

"Then I will just stretch myself here, Heath," replied Lamotte. "I don't
feel equal to a start out just now; and, look here, old fellow," turning
a shade paler, as he spoke, "deal g