rter to two, signor."

"Good! Then let your uncle be summoned. I have found out the secret."

"A thimbleful of old cognac, signor?" asked Masters.

"Willingly, my friend, willingly. I see how wise you both were. I
approve and thank you. You thought that I had followed the others into
the shades, yet meant to restore me if you could without frightening Sir
Walter. To go to sleep was unpardonable."

Abraham Masters and Henry descended with the good news, while the old
man drank.

"I shall detain you half an hour or so," he said, when they all returned
to him. "But I have no fear that anybody will want to fall asleep."

Sir Walter spoke.

"Thank Heaven, signor, thank Heaven! All is well with you?"

"All is absolutely well with me, but then I have slept refreshingly for
some time. You, I fear, have not closed your eyes."

"Would you have any objection to Masters hearing what you may have
to tell us? By so doing a true and ungarbled report will get out to
Chadlands."

"My report will go out to the whole world, Sir Walter. All is
accomplished and established on certain proofs. Your good spaniel has
played his part also. I salute him--the old Prince."

Henry now observed that the dog was stretched on the floor at Signor
Mannetti's feet.

"Still asleep?"

Mary knelt to pat the spaniel and started back.

"How horribly cold he is!"

"For ever asleep--a martyr to science. He was to die on Friday,
remember. He has received euthanasia a little sooner, and nothing in his
life has become him like the leaving of it. The last victim of the Grey
Room. Mourn him not, he passed without a pang--as did his betters."

"But, but--you spoke of crime and criminals!" gasped Sir Walter.

"And truly. Great crimes have been committed in this room and great
criminals committed them. Is a crime any less a crime because the
doers have mouldered in their dishonored graves for nearly five hundred
years?"

"Your handling of speech is not ours, and you use words differently. The
old dog did not suffer, you say? How did he come to die--in his sleep?"

"Even so. Without a sigh, the last venerable victim of this murdering
shadow."

"You saw him die, and yet were safe yourself, sir?" asked Lennox.

"That is what happened. Now sit down all of you, father Abraham also,
and in five minutes all will be as clear as day."

They obeyed him silently.

"Yes, a master criminal, one whose name has rung down the ages and will
from to-morrow w