, he
heard the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in frightful
pain from his head. At the same moment, unable longer to control
himself, he uttered a wild shriek and dashed forward to seize the
torturer and tear him to a thousand pieces. Instantly, in a flash, the
entire scene vanished; darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felt
himself lifted off his feet by some force like a great wind and borne
swiftly away into space.

When he recovered his senses he was standing just outside the house and
the figure of Thorpe was beside him in the gloom. The great doors were
in the act of closing behind him, but before they shut he fancied he
caught a glimpse of an immense veiled figure standing upon the
threshold, with flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon like a
shining sword of fire.

"Come quickly now--all is over!" Thorpe whispered.

"And the dark man--?" gasped the clerk, as he moved swiftly by the
other's side.

"In this present life is the Manager of the company."

"And the victim?"

"Was yourself!"

"And the friend he--_I_ refused to betray?"

"I was that friend," answered Thorpe, his voice with every moment
sounding more and more like the cry of the wind. "You gave your life in
agony to save mine."

"And again, in this life, we have all three been together?"

"Yes. Such forces are not soon or easily exhausted, and justice is not
satisfied till all have reaped what they sowed."

Jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping away into some other state
of consciousness. Thorpe began to seem unreal. Presently he would be
unable to ask more questions. He felt utterly sick and faint with it
all, and his strength was ebbing.

"Oh, quick!" he cried, "now tell me more. Why did I see this? What must
I do?"

The wind swept across the field on their right and entered the wood
beyond with a great roar, and the air round him seemed filled with
voices and the rushing of hurried movement.

"To the ends of justice," answered the other, as though speaking out
of the centre of the wind and from a distance, "which sometimes is
entrusted to the hands of those who suffered and were strong. One wrong
cannot be put right by another wrong, but your life has been so worthy
that the opportunity is given to--"

The voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was far overhead with the
rushing wind.

"You may punish or--" Here Jones lost sight of Thorpe's figure
altogether, for he seemed to have vanish