e thing is done,
and God alone knows what the end of it will be."

As he concluded, Calverley uttered a deep sigh, and covered his face
with his slender, delicate hands. For a space we were all silent and, I
think, deeply moved; for, grotesquely unreal as the whole thing was,
there was a pathos, and even a tragedy, in it that we all felt to be
very real indeed.

Suddenly Mr. Brodribb started and looked at his watch.

"Good gracious, Calverley, we shall lose our train."

The young man pulled himself together and stood up. "We shall just do it
if we go at once," said he. "Good-bye," he added, shaking Thorndyke's
hand and mine. "You have been very patient, and I have been rather
prosy, I am afraid. Come along, Mr. Brodribb."

Thorndyke and I followed them out on to the landing, and I heard my
colleague say to the solicitor in a low tone, but very earnestly: "Get
him away from that house, Brodribb, and don't let him out of your sight
for a moment."

I did not catch the solicitor's reply, if he made any, but when we were
back in our room I noticed that Thorndyke was more agitated than I had
ever seen him.

"I ought not to have let them go," he exclaimed. "Confound me! If I had
had a grain of wit, I should have made them lose their train."

He lit his pipe and fell to pacing the room with long strides, his eyes
bent on the floor with an expression sternly reflective. At last,
finding him hopelessly taciturn, I knocked out my pipe and went to bed.

* * * * *

As I was dressing on the following morning, Thorndyke entered my room.
His face was grave even to sternness, and he held a telegram in his
hand.

"I am going to Weybridge this morning," he said shortly, holding the
"flimsy" out to me. "Shall you come?"

I took the paper from him, and read:

"Come, for God's sake! F. C. is dead. You will
understand.--BRODRIBB."

I handed him back the telegram, too much shocked for a moment to speak.
The whole dreadful tragedy summed up in that curt message rose before me
in an instant, and a wave of deep pity swept over me at this miserable
end to the sad, empty life.

"What an awful thing, Thorndyke!" I exclaimed at length. "To be killed
by a mere grotesque delusion."

"Do you think so?" he asked dryly. "Well, we shall see; but you will
come?"

"Yes," I replied; and as he retired, I proceeded hurriedly to finish
dressing.

Half an hour later, as we rose from a rapid breakfa