ted them and, on
the close sward of the summit, footsteps would have left no record.

"What d'you make of it?" asked Doria. "Your mind is swift and
skilled in these deviltries. Is it true that my master and my friend
is a dead man--the old sea wolf dead?"

"Yes," said Brendon drearily. "In my mind there is no doubt of it.
It is also true that a thing has happened which I should have
prevented and a life been lost which might have been saved. From the
first I have taken too much on trust in this matter and believed
all that I was told too readily."

"That is no blame to you," answered the other. "Why should you have
doubted what you heard?"

"Because it was my business to credit nothing and trust nobody. I am
not blaming anybody, or suggesting any attempts to deceive me; but I
have accepted what sounded obvious and rational, as we all did,
instead of examining things for myself. You may not understand this,
Doria; but other people will be only too quick to do so."

"You did the best you could; so did everybody. Who was to know that
he came here to kill his brother?"

"A madman may do anything. My fault has been to assume his return to
sanity."

"What more natural? How could you assume otherwise? Only an insane
man would have killed Madonna's husband, and only a very sane one
would have escaped the sleuths afterward. So you argued that he was
mad and then sane again; yet now he has gone mad once more."

Brendon desired to be at Dartmouth as swiftly as possible, so that a
search might be instituted at dawn. Doria considered whether he
might make best speed by road or water, and decided that he could
bring Mark more quickly to the seaport in the launch than along the
highway.

"We must, however, return by the tunnel," he said, "for there is no
other route by which we can get back to the boat."

Brendon agreed and they descended the zigzag path and then, from the
plateau, reentered the tunnel and presently reached the steps again
and the cavern beneath. Extinguishing the lamp, which still burned
steadily, they were soon afloat, and under a tremor of dawn the
little vessel cut her way at her best speed, flinging a sheaf of
foam from her bows and leaving a white wake on the still and
leaden-coloured sea.

They saw a figure beneath the flagstaff at "Crow's Nest" and both
recognized Jenny Pendean. She made no signal, but the sight of her
evidently disturbed Giuseppe's mind. He stopped the boat and
appealed to Bre