he pulled herself together with a long sob--I felt it shuddering
through her, so close she knelt by me. Again silence fell on the
room. Jimmy had fetched my bath-sponge along with the bottle.
I poured water upon it and bathed Jack's temples, watching his
eyelids. After a while they fluttered a little. I felt over his
heart. "He is coming round," I announced: "but we'll let him lie
here for a little, before lifting him on to the couch.

"One question first," commanded Constantia. "Answer me, you two.
. . . Is this--is this thing true, Roddy? _Did he leave-this
man--on the island?_"

For the moment I could put up no better delay--as neither could
Jimmy--than to call "hush!" and pretend to listen to Jack's faintly
recovering heart-beat. But Farrell heard, and answered,--

"It's true, Miss Denistoun. . . . I had no notion to find him here;
still less to find you and distress you. I came to Sir Roderick.
But the dog here was wiser. _He_ knew the scent on the stairs, and
raced in ahead. . . . I am sorry to say it, Miss Denistoun: but that
blackguard yonder took ship and left me solitary,--to die, for aught
he knew. Let him come-to, and then we'll talk."

Constantia rose. Slowly she picked up her gloves and sunshade.
"No, we will not talk," she said, after a pause. "That talk is for
you four men. I--I have no wish to see him recover."

As she said it, she very slowly detached from her breast-knot the
rose which had carried my felicitation, and laid it on the table:
and, with that, she walked out, Farrell drawing aside to make way for
her.

NIGHT THE TWENTY-SECOND.

THE SECOND MAN ESCAPES.

Now that exit of Constantia's, I must tell you, had an instant and
very remarkable effect upon Farrell, though she swept by him without
perceiving it.

A moment before he had stood barring the doorway, his legs planted
wide, his eyes fierce, his chest panting as he waited for his enemy
to come back to life, his mouth working and twisting with impatience
to let forth its flood of denunciation.

As Constantia walked to the door he not only drew back a foot to let
her pass. He drew his whole body back, bowed for all the world like
any shop-walker letting out a customer, even thrust out a hand, as by
remembered instinct and as if to pull open an imaginary swing-door
for a departing customer of rank. In short, for a moment the man
reverted to his past--to Farrell of the Tottenham Court Road. . . .
Nor was this