Inkston, at all events.
After a time the landlord of the cottage screwed up his courage to resume
possession; the Captain had only a lease of it, though he built the Tower
at his own charges, and, I believe, without any permission, the landlord
being much too frightened to interfere with him. He found everything in a
sad mess in the house, while in the Tower itself every blessed stick had
been burnt up. So the story looks pretty plausible."

"And the grave?" This question came eagerly from at least three of
the company.

"In front of the fireplace there was a big oblong hole--six feet by
three, by four--planks at the bottom, the sides roughly lined with brick.
Captain Duggle's grave; but he wasn't in it!"

"But what really became of him, Mr. Penrose?" cried Cynthia.

"The Rising Generation is very skeptical," said old Naylor. "You, of
course, Penrose, believe the story?"

"I do," said Mr. Penrose composedly. "I believe that a devil carried him
off, and that its name was _delirium tremens_. We can guess, can't we,
Irechester, why he smashed or burnt everything, and fled in mad terror
into the darkness? Where to? Was he drowned at sea, or did he take his
life, or did he rot to death in some filthy hole? Nobody knows. But the
grave he dug is there in the Tower, unless it's been filled up since old
Saffron has lived there."

"Why in the world wasn't it filled up before?" asked Alec Naylor with a
laugh. "People lived in the cottage, didn't they?"

"I've visited the cottage often," Irechester interposed, "when various
people had it, but I never saw any signs of the Tower being used."

"It never was, I'm sure; and as for the grave, well, Alec, in country
parts, to this day, you'd be thought a bold man if you filled up a grave
that your neighbor had dug for himself, and such a neighbor as Captain
Duggle! He might take it into his head some night to visit it, and if he
found it filled up there'd be trouble, nasty trouble!" His laugh cackled
out rather uncomfortably. Gertie shivered, and one of the subalterns
gulped down his port.

"Old Saffron's a man of education, I believe. No doubt he pays no heed to
such nonsense, and has had the thing covered up," said Naylor.

"As to that I don't know. Perhaps you do, Irechester? He's your patient,
isn't he?"

Dr. Irechester sat four places from Mary. Before he replied to the
question he cast a glance at her, smiling rather mockingly. "I've
attended him on one or two occasion