d
carefully to what you say; so that I may try to digest it."

Both men seemed fresher and better for the "easy," and when they met in
the afternoon each of them had something to contribute to the general
stock of information. Adam, who was by nature of a more militant
disposition than his elderly friend, was glad to see that the conference
at once assumed a practical trend. Sir Nathaniel recognised this, and,
like an old diplomatist, turned it to present use.

"Tell me now, Adam, what is the outcome, in your own mind, of our
conversation?"

"That the whole difficulty already assumes practical shape; but with
added dangers, that at first I did not imagine."

"What is the practical shape, and what are the added dangers? I am not
disputing, but only trying to clear my own ideas by the consideration of
yours--"

So Adam went on:

"In the past, in the early days of the world, there were monsters who
were so vast that they could exist for thousands of years. Some of them
must have overlapped the Christian era. They may have progressed
intellectually in process of time. If they had in any way so progressed,
or even got the most rudimentary form of brain, they would be the most
dangerous things that ever were in the world. Tradition says that one of
these monsters lived in the Marsh of the East, and came up to a cave in
Diana's Grove, which was also called the Lair of the White Worm. Such
creatures may have grown down as well as up. They _may_ have grown into,
or something like, human beings. Lady Arabella March is of snake nature.
She has committed crimes to our knowledge. She retains something of the
vast strength of her primal being--can see in the dark--has the eyes of a
snake. She used the nigger, and then dragged him through the snake's
hole down to the swamp; she is intent on evil, and hates some one we
love. Result . . . "

"Yes, the result?"

"First, that Mimi Watford should be taken away at once--then--"

"Yes?"

"The monster must be destroyed."

"Bravo! That is a true and fearless conclusion. At whatever cost, it
must be carried out."

"At once?"

"Soon, at all events. That creature's very existence is a danger. Her
presence in this neighbourhood makes the danger immediate."

As he spoke, Sir Nathaniel's mouth hardened and his eyebrows came down
till they met. There was no doubting his concurrence in the resolution,
or his readiness to help in carrying it out. But he was an elde