She left him. Hamel followed her out into the hail. Esther and her
mother were already at the foot of the stairs. He drew them into the
study. Esther gave him her hands, but she was trembling in every limb.

"I am terrified!" she whispered. "Every moment I think I can hear the
click of that awful carriage. He will come back; I am sure he will come
back!"

"He may," Hamel answered sturdily, "but never to make you people his
slaves again. You have done enough. You have earned your freedom."

"I agree," Mrs. Fentolin said firmly. "We have gone on from sacrifice
to sacrifice, until it has become a habit with us to consider him the
master of our bodies and our souls. To-day, Esther, we have reached the
breaking point. Not even for the sake of that message from the other
side of the grave, not even to preserve his honour and his memory, can
we do more."

Hamel held up his finger. He opened the French windows, and they
followed him out on to the terrace. The grey dawn had broken now over
the sea. There were gleams of fitful sunshine on the marshes. Some
distance away a large motor-car was coming rapidly along the road.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Mr. John P. Dunster, lying flat upon his little bed, watched with
dilated eyes the disappearance of the ladder. Then he laughed. It was a
queer sound--broken, spasmodic, devoid of any of the ordinary elements
of humor--and yet it was a laugh. Mr. Fentolin turned his head towards
his prisoner and nodded thoughtfully.

"What a constitution, my friend!" he exclaimed, without any trace of
disturbance in his voice. "And what a sense of humour! Strange that a
trifling circumstance like this should affect it. Meekins, burn some
more of the powder. The atmosphere down here may be salubrious, but I am
unaccustomed to it."

"Perhaps," Mr. Dunster said in a hollow tone, "you will have some
opportunity now of discovering with me what it is like."

"That, too, is just possible," Mr. Fentolin admitted, blowing out a
little volume of smoke from a cigarette which he had just lit, "but one
never knows. We have friends, and our position, although, I must admit,
a little ridiculous, is easily remedied. But how that mischief-making
Mr. Hamel could have found his way into the boat-house does, I must
confess, perplex me."

"He must have been hanging around and followed us in when we came,"
Meekins muttered. "Somehow, I fancied I felt some one near."

"Our young friend," Mr. Fentolin continued, "has