with us."

"Hah! Why not?" cried Sir Mark eagerly. "No, no; that would not do.
But I certainly will run over before long."

"Do, sir," cried Barron eagerly.

"Barbadoes, Bahamas, Bermuda," cried Sir Mark. "Why, I could take a
trip anywhere among the islands. It's all familiar ground to me. But
poor Myra--a month; so soon. I don't feel as if I am doing right,
Barron; but there, it is fate."

"Yes, sir, it is fate."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

GUEST PAYS A LATE VISIT.

The crystals had dissolved in the glass as Stratton held it up and gazed
fixedly at its contents, his face, stern and calm, dimly seen in the
shadow, while the shape of the vessel he grasped was plainly delineated
against the white blotting paper, upon which a circle of bright light
was cast by the shaded lamp.

He was not hesitating, but thinking calmly enough. The paroxysm of
horror had been mastered, and as a step was faintly heard crossing the
court, he was trying to think out whether there was anything else which
he ought to do before that cold hand gripped him and it would be too
late.

He looked round, set down the glass for a moment by his letters, and
thrusting aside the library chair he used at his writing table, he
wheeled forward a lounge seat ready to receive him as he sank back,
thinking quietly that the action of the terrible acid would perhaps be
very sudden.

Anything more?

He smiled pleasantly, for a fresh thought flashed across his mind, and
taking an envelope he bent down and directed it plainly, and without the
slightest trembling of his hand, to Mrs Brade.

"Poor, gossiping old thing!" he said. "She has been very kind to me.
It will be a shock, but she must bear it like the rest."

He took a solitary five-pound note from his pocketbook, thrust it into
the envelope, wrote inside the flap, "For your own use," and moistened
and secured it before placing it with the other letters.

"About nine to-morrow morning she will find it," he thought, "and then--
poor soul! poor soul! The police and--I shall be asleep."

"God--forgive me!" he said slowly as, after a step in front of the
easy-chair he had placed ready, he once more raised the glass, and
closing his eyes:

"To Myra," he said, with a bitter laugh; and it was nearly at his lips
when there was a sharp double knock at his outer door.

A fierce look of anger came into his countenance as he stood glaring in
the direction of the summons. Then, raising the glass