a manner suggestive of
signalling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again the
Martian had departed.

Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and then
Mr. Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal
were allayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, as
occasion arose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself with
what was fast becoming the most real thing in his existence.

In December Mr. Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming examination
became heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, and
for ten or eleven days--he is not quite sure which--he saw nothing of
Cave. He then grew anxious to resume these investigations, and, the
stress of his seasonal labours being abated, he went down to Seven
Dials. At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird fancier's
window, and then another at a cobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was closed.

He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black. He at once
called Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap but
ample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any very
great surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was dead and already buried.
She was in tears, and her voice was a little thick. She had just
returned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects
and the honourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at last
able to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in
his shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace,
and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was
smiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on
the floor at his feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he
was found.

This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himself
bitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man's
ill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached that
topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities.
He was dumbfoundered to learn that it was sold.

Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs,
had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for
the crystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt in
which her daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his
address. As they were without the means req