to save you the trouble of going," he said.

Sartoris clasped his hands to his head. He was still throbbing and
aching all over from the ill effect of the treatment accorded him by the
Burmese visitors. Berrington had come down in the nick of time and saved
him from a terrible fate, but Sartoris was not feeling in the least
grateful. To a certain extent he was between the devil and the deep sea.
Desperately as he was situated now, he could not afford to dismiss
Berrington altogether. To do that would be to bring the authorities down
upon him in double quick time. True, Berrington, out of his deep
affection for Mary, might give him as much rope as possible. And again,
Sartoris did not quite know how far Berrington was posted as to the
recent course of events. True, Berrington suspected him of knowing
something of the disappearance of the body of Sir Charles, but Sartoris
did not see that he could prove anything.

But he did not want Berrington to go just yet, and he was still more
anxious that the Colonel should not know who was knocking at the door.
Unless his calculations were very wide of the mark, it was Beatrice
Richford who was seeking admission. Sartoris would have given much to
prevent those two meeting.

He smiled, though he was beside himself, almost, with passion. He seemed
to have become very weak and impotent all at once. He would have to
simulate an emotion that he did not possess. Once more there came the
timid knock at the door.

"Berrington," he said desperately. "Do you believe that there is any
good in me?"

The question was asked in almost a pleading voice. But Berrington was
not in the least moved. He knew perfectly well what he had to deal with.
Again, the knock at the door.

"I should say not a fragment," Berrington said critically. "I should say
that you are utterly bad to the core. I have just saved you from a
terrible fate which really ought to be a source of the greatest possible
regret to me, but you are not in the least grateful. When that knock
came for the first time, you looked at me with murder in your eyes. I am
in your way now, I am possibly on the verge of an important discovery.
If you could kill me with one look and destroy my body with another you
would do it without hesitation. And that is the reason, my good friend,
why I am going to the door."

"Don't," Sartoris implored. He had become mild and pleading. "You are
quite wrong--Berrington; I once heard you say that there wa