away into the next world without pain or shock.
We must feel for him as we try to feel for dear Tom. And I do not
mean that I am sorry for him; I am only sorry for us, because of the
difficulty of explaining. Yet to tell the truth will not be difficult.
They must do the best they can. It doesn't matter as much as you think.
Indeed, how should they blame you at all until they themselves find out
the truth?"

"They will--they must! They will discover the reason. They will hunt
down the murderer, and they will inevitably attach utmost blame to me
for listening to a man possessed. May was possessed, I tell you!"

"He was exceedingly convincing. When I listened to him he shook me,
too."

"I should have supported you, instead of going over to him."

"He knows the truth now. He is with Tom now. We must remember that. We
know they are happy, and that makes the opinion of living people matter
very little."

Then, out of his weakness, he smote her, and thrust upon her some hours
of agony, very horrible in their nature, which there was no good reason
that Mary should have suffered.

"Who is alive and who is dead?" he asked. "We don't even know that. The
police demanded to make their own inquiries, and Peter Hardcastle may at
this moment be a living and breathing man, if they are right."

She stared at him and feared for his reason.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that they were not prepared to grant that he was dead. Henry and
Mannering took him up on that assumption. He may have been restored to
animation and his vital forces recovered. Why not? There was nothing
visible to indicate dissolution. We have heard of trances, catalepsies,
which simulate death so closely that even physicians are deceived. Have
not men been buried alive? Tom's father at this moment might be restored
to life, if we only knew how to act."

"Then--" she said, with horrified eyes, and stopped.

He saw what he had done.

"God forgive me! No, no, not that, Mary! It's all madness and moonshine!
This is delirium; it will kill me! Don't think I believe them, any more
than Mannering did, or Henry did. Henry has seen much death; he could
not have been deceived. Tom was dead, and your heart told you he was
dead. One cannot truly make any mistake in the presence of death; I know
that."

Mary was marvellously restrained, despite the fact that she had received
this appalling blow and vividly suffered all that it implied.

"I will try to put it out of m