ortest way home."

"Do you mean to do it or not, my lord? I've left it to you as a
gentleman."

"It's going to upset more than you think, Soolsby. Suppose he, out
there in Egypt"--he pointed again to the map--"doesn't thank me for the
information. Suppose he says no, and--"

"Right's right. Give him the chance, my lord. How can you know, unless
you tell him the truth?"

"Do you like living, Soolsby?"

"Do you want to kill me, my lord?"

There was a dark look in Eglington's face. "But answer me, do you want
to live?"

"I want to live long enough to see the Earl of Eglington in his own
house."

"Well, I've made that possible. The other night when you were telling me
your little story, you were near sending yourself into eternity--as
near as I am knocking this ash off my cigar." His little finger almost
touched the ash. "Your hand was as near touching a wire charged with
death. I saw it. It would have been better for me if you had gone; but I
shut off the electricity. Suppose I hadn't, could I have been blamed?
It would have been an accident. Providence did not intervene; I did. You
owe me something, Soolsby."

Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment. A mist was before his
eyes; but through the mist, though he saw nothing of this scene in
which he now was, he saw the laboratory, and himself and Eglington, and
Eglington's face as it peered at him, and, just before the voice called
outside, Eglington's eyes fastened on his hand. It all flashed upon him
now, and he saw himself starting back at the sound of the voice.

Slowly he got up now, went to the door, and opened it. "My lord, it is
not true," he said. "You have not spoken like a gentleman. It was
my lady's voice that saved me. This is my castle, my lord--you lodge
yonder." He pointed down into the darkness where the lights of the
village shone. "I owe you nothing. I pay my debts. Pay yours, my lord,
to him that's beyond and away."

Eglington kept his countenance as he drew on his great-coat and slowly
passed from the house.

"I ought to have let you die, Soolsby. Y'ou'll think better of this
soon. But it's quite right to leave the matter to me. It may take a
little time, but everything will come right. Justice shall be done.
Well, good night, Soolsby. You live too much alone, and imagination is a
bad thing for the lonely. Good night-good night."

Going down the hill quickly, he said to himself: "A sort of second sight
he had about that wire.