ir before the grate and
pressed both hands against his forehead.

"Mad," he repeated in a voice low as a moan, framing his words slowly
and with great effort. "By Jove, men, you should know me better than to
mouth such rot under your breath. To-night, I'd sell my soul, sell my
soul to be mad, really mad, to know that all I think has happened,
hadn't happened at all--" and his speech was broken by a sharp intake of
breath.

"Out with it, man, for the Lord's sake," shouted my uncle, now convinced
that Eric was not drunk and jumping to conclusions--as he was wont to do
when excited--regarding a possible scandal.

"Out with it, man! We'll stand by you! Has that blasted red-faced
turkey----"

"Pray, spare your histrionics, for the present," Eric cut in with the
icy self-possession bred by a lifetime's danger, dispelling my uncle's
second suspicion with a quiet scorn that revealed nothing.

"What the----" began my kinsman, "what did you strike him for?"

"Did I strike somebody?" asked Hamilton absently.

Again my uncle flashed a questioning look at me, but this time his face
showed his conviction so plainly no word was needed.

"Did I strike somebody? Wish you'd apologize----"

"Apologize!" thundered my uncle. "I'll do nothing of the kind. Served
him right. 'Twas a pretty way, a pretty way, indeed, to speak of any
man's wife----" But the word "wife" had not been uttered before Eric
threw out his hands in an imploring gesture.

"Don't!" he cried out sharply in the suffering tone of a man under the
operating knife. "Don't! It all comes back! It is true! It is true! I
can't get away from it! It is no nightmare. My God, men, how can I tell
you? There's no way of saying it! It is impossible--preposterous--some
monstrous joke--it's quite impossible I tell you--it couldn't have
happened--such things don't happen--couldn't happen--to her--of all
women! But she's gone--she's gone----"

"See here, Hamilton," cried my uncle, utterly beside himself with
excitement, "are we to understand you are talking of your wife, or--or
some other woman?"

"See here, Hamilton," I reiterated, quite heedless of the brutality of
our questions and with a thousand wild suspicions flashing into my mind.
"Is it your wife, Miriam, and your boy?"

But he heard neither of us.

"They were there--they waved to me from the garden at the edge of the
woods as I entered the forest. Only this morning, both waving to me as I
rode away--and when I retu