drove him from corner to
corner, out of the room, into the hall, striking him in the face till
the young fellow reeled and fell against the bath-room door. It gave; he
stumbled into darkness; and after him sprang Dysart, teeth set--sprang
into the darkness which split before him with a roar into a million
splinters of fire.

He stood for a second swaying, reaching out to grasp at nothing in a
patient, persistent, meaningless way; then he fell backward, striking a
terrified servant, who shrank away and screamed as the light fell on her
apron and cuffs all streaked with blood.

She screamed again as a young man's white and battered face appeared in
the dark doorway before her.

"Is he hurt?" he asked. His dilated eyes were fixed upon the thing on
the floor. "What are you howling for? Is he--dead?" whispered Quest.
Suddenly terror overwhelmed him.

"Get out of my way!" he yelled, hurling the shrieking maid aside,
striking the frightened butler who tried to seize him on the stairs.
There was another manservant at the door, who stood his ground swinging
a bronze statuette. Quest darted into the drawing-room, ran through the
music-room and dining-room beyond, and slammed the door of the butler's
pantry.

He stood there panting, glaring, his shoulder set against the door; then
he saw a bolt, and shot it, and backed away, pistol swinging in his
bleeding fist.

Servants were screaming somewhere in the house; doors slammed, a man was
shouting through a telephone amid a confusion of voices that swelled
continually until the four walls rang with the uproar. A little later a
policeman ran through the basement into the yard beyond; another pushed
his way to the pantry door and struck it heavily with his night-stick,
demanding admittance.

For a second he waited; then the reply came, abrupt, deafening; and he
hurled himself at the bolted door, and it flew wide open.

But Quest remained uninterested. Nothing concerned him now, lying there
on his back, his bruised young face toward the ceiling, and every
earthly question answered for him as long as time shall last.

* * * * *

Up-stairs a very old and shrunken man sat shivering in bed, staring
vacantly at some policemen and making feeble efforts to reach a wig
hanging from a chair beside him--a very glossy, expensive wig, nicely
curled where it was intended to fall above the ears.

"I don't know," he quavered, smirking at everybody with crac