y due
to the very severe mental strain to which he had subjected himself
during the last week or so. He went up to his room and found Koda Bux on
guard. Koda salaamed and said:

"Protector of the poor, it is well! To-morrow Vane Sahib shall be well,
but now he must sleep."

"Very well, Koda Bux," replied Sir Arthur. "I know he can have no better
nurse than you, and you will watch."

"Yes, sahib, I will watch as long as it is necessary."

Then Sir Arthur went downstairs to hear from Ernshaw and Dora the now
inevitable story of the sin of the man who had been his friend for more
than a lifetime. He heard it as a man who knew much of men and women
could and should hear such a story--in silence; and then, saying a quiet
good-night to them, he went up to his room to have it out with himself
just as he had done on that other terrible night when he had found Vane
drunk on the hearth-rug in the Den, and had recognised that he had
inherited from his mother the fatal taint of alcoholic insanity.

When he awoke the next morning, after a few hours' sleep, Koda Bux was
not there to prepare his bath and lay out his clean linen. It was the
first time that it had happened for nearly twenty years, and it was not
until Sir Arthur came downstairs that he heard the reason. Koda Bux had
vanished. No one knew when or how he had gone, but he had gone, leaving
no sign or trace behind him.

"Vane," said Sir Arthur, as soon as the truth dawned upon him, "we must
go down to Worcester at once. I know where Koda Bux has gone, and what
he has gone to do. Garthorne's crime was vile enough, God knows, but we
mustn't let murder be done if we can possibly help it. Ah, there's an
ABC, Vane, just see which train he can have got to Kidderminster. I know
the next one is 9.50, which we can just catch when we have had a
mouthful of breakfast; that's a fast one, too; at least, fairly fast;
gets there about half past one."

"5.40, arriving 12.15, 6.30 arriving 12.20," said Vane, reading from the
time-table.

"In any case, I am afraid he has more than an hour's start of us at
Kidderminster. We can reduce that by taking a carriage to the Abbey
because he would walk, and, of course, he may not, probably will not, be
able to see Garthorne immediately, so we may be in time after all. Vane,
do you feel strong enough to come?"

"Of course I do, dad," he replied. "As long as I could stand I would
come."

"And may I come, too, Sir Arthur?" said Dora.

"Yo