runken, they had neglected to see
to the security of a dam, beneath which they were working, and it had
burst, sweeping all before it, tearing down and scooping out the sides
of the drain; and Brace and his father arrived in time to save the lives
of two of the men, whom the water had swept some distance down.

But no lives were lost, and soon, the water having passed, the men
collected where they had been at work, one angrily blaming the other as
being the cause of the mischief.

"Are you all here?" exclaimed Captain Norton in his sharp, short,
military way. "Count up!"

"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Where's Joe Marks?" cried the ganger,
counting.

"Here, all right!" growled a wet savage, who was vainly trying to ignite
his pipe with some sodden matches.

"Where's Sol Dancer?" cried the ganger, after another spell at counting.

"Oh! he's over there," said another with a grin. "You couldn't drownd
he, if you was to try."

"We're all right, sir!" said the ganger. "We was going to work another
hour, as they lost a lot o' time this morning; but it's all over now for
to-night. Nice job to get straight again in the mornin'. But, hallo!
what's that?"

He was about to step forward, through the soft peat mire, when he was
pressed back by Captain Norton, to whom and to his son had come in one
and the same instant, the revelation of the second part of the Merland
mystery; and together they leaped down into the great cutting, to wade
through up to their waists in the black, decayed bog vegetation. They
needed no words for explanation; the tufts of little forget-me-nots and
silky cotton rush growing around, and yet untouched by the navvies'
spades, told all; for there, in the side of the great drain, where the
rush of water had, in its fierce eddy, scooped out a vast mass of peat,
stood, perfectly upright, with hands clasped together as if in prayer,
her head thrown back, as if to give the last glance upward, towards the
haven of rest, the body of Marion Lady Gernon.

Foul play? Treachery there was none, save that of the deceitful moss
spread over the soft peat--a verdant carpet over black relentless death
from which there was no escape. Even yet, tightly clasped within her
fingers, were the remains of the specimens she must have been gathering
when the moss gave way, and she sank, apparently without a struggle,
from the eyes of the world.

There was no horrible decay here--no frightful repelling change; the