wo bags, and a hundred
guineas in each! He clutched and felt their full round sides. Yes,
yes, they were full, as he had left them!

WHO-OOSH!

Heavens! What was _that_?

The Major gripped his bags and was preparing to run; but, an instant
later, cowered low, and backed into the fig-tree's shadow as the
whole sky leapt into flame and shook with a terrific detonation.

The Regatta fireworks had begun.

Across the little garden a window went up.

"My dear," said a voice (the Doctor's), "bring the child to look, if
he won't be frightened."

In the window they stood, all three--the Doctor, "Miss Marty," the
child--a happy domestic group, framed there with the lamp behind
them. Deep as he could squeeze himself back into the shadow, the
Major cowered and watched them.

The child crowed and leapt with delight. His father and mother
looked down at him, then at one another, and laughed happily.
Alas! poor Major!

They had no eyes to search the garden. What should they suspect,
those two, there in the warm circle of the lamp, wrapped in their own
security?

The rockets ceased to blaze and bang. At length the heavens resumed
their dark peace, and the distant barrel-organ reasserted itself from
the Town Quay. The child's voice demanded more, but his father
closed the window and drew the curtain close. Panting hard, his brow
clammy with sweat, the Major stole forth and down to the boat with
his poor spoils.

Half an hour later he found himself in the crowd, his pockets
weighted with guineas. Whither should he go? In what direction set
his face? Eastward for Plymouth, or westward for Falmouth?
He roamed the streets, letting the throng of merrymakers carry him
for the while as it willed; and it ended, of course (you may make the
experiment for yourself on a regatta night), in carrying him to the
merry-go-round on the Town Quay.

He stared at it stupidly, his hands in his bulging pockets.
He feared no thieves. To begin with, his appearance was not
calculated to invite the attention of pickpockets, and moreover,
there are none in Troy. He stared at the whirling horses, the
blazing naphtha jets, the revolving mirrors, the laughing,
irresponsible faces as they swept by and away again, and reappeared
and once again passed laughing thither where, on the farther side of
the circle, brooded (as it seemed to him) a great shadow of darkness.

Suddenly his heart stood still, and his few hairs stiffened under his