n room. Persuade her to lie in bed--anything."

"He does not know what I have seen. Charge him with the murder of the
Dane. Tell him," said Fanny, her lips stiffening, "that if he dares to
come again--if he does not go away--he shall be arrested for murder. I
will keep silence no longer!"

"I will--I am resolved! Oh! who will rid us of this monster?"

Outside, the gale rose higher--higher still. They heard it howling,
grinding branches together; they heard the roaring and the rushing of
the waters as the rising tide was driven over the shallow sands, like a
mountain reservoir at loose among the valleys below.

In the midst of the tempest there came a sudden lull. Wind and water
alike seemed hushed. And out of the lull, as if in answer to the
woman's question, there came a loud cry--the shriek of a man in deadly
peril.

The two women caught each other by the hand and rushed to the window.
They threw it open; the tempest began again; a fresh gust drove them
back; the waters roared: the wind howled; they heard the voice no more.
They closed the window and put up the shutters.

It was long past midnight when they dared to go to bed. One of them lay
awake the whole night long. In the roaring tempest she had seen an omen
of the wrath of Heaven about to fall once more upon her mistress.

She was wrong. The wrath of Heaven fell upon one far more guilty.

In the morning, with the ebbing tide, a dead body was found lashed to
the posts of one of the standing nets in the Solway. It was recognised
by Hugh, who went out to look at it, and found it the body of Vimpany.

Whether he was on his way back to Annan, or whether he intended to call
at the villa that evening instead of next morning, no one can tell. His
wife shed tears, but they were tears of relief. The man was buried as a
stranger. Hugh kept his counsel. Mrs. Vimpany put the letter in the
fire. Neither of them thought it wise to disturb the mind of Iris by
any mention of the man. Some days later, however, Mrs. Vimpany came
downstairs in a widow's cap.

To Iris's look of interrogation she replied calmly, "Yes, I heard the
other day. He is dead. Is it not better--even for him, perhaps--that he
should be dead? He can do no more wickedness; he can bring misery into
no more households. He is dead."

Iris made no reply. Better--better far--that he was dead. But how she
had been delivered from the man, to what new dangers she had been
exposed, she knew not, and will nev