l so fair a fool." He regarded me for a moment with pitying
contempt, then stretched out his hand and took up my grandfather's
key.

"I read here," he said, "written very clearly and distinctly, certain
words. You must know those words; but I will repeat them to you to
refresh your memory:--"

"THY HOUSE IS SET UPON THE SANDS. AND THY HOPES BY A DEAD MAN."

"Well?" I asked, for--fool that I was--even yet I did not understand.

"Mr. Jasper Trenoweth, did you ever hear tell of such a place as Dead
Man's Rock?"

The truth, the whole horrible certainty of it, struck me as one great
wave, and rushed over my bent head as with the whirl and roar of many
waters. "Dead Man's Rock!" "Dead Man's Rock!" it sang in my ears as
it swept me off my feet for a moment and passed, leaving me to sink
and battle in the gulf of bottomless despair. And then, as if I
really drowned, my past life with all its follies, mistakes, wrecked
hopes and baseless dreams, shot swiftly past in one long train.
Again I saw my mother's patient, anxious smile, my father's drowned
face with the salt drops trickling from his golden hair, the struggle
on the rock, the inquest, the awful face at the window, the corpses
of my parents stretched side by side upon the bed, the scene in the
gambling-hell with all its white and desperate faces, Claire, my lost
love, the river, the theatre, Tom's death, and that last dreadful
scene, Francesca with the dark blood soaking her white dress and
trickling down upon the boards. I tried to put my hands before my
eyes, but the cords held and cut my arms like burning steel. Then in
a flash I seemed to be striding madly up and down Oxford Street,
while still in front of me danced and flew the yellow woman, her
every diamond flashing in the gas-light, her cold black eyes, as they
turned and mocked me, blazing marsh-lights of doom. Then came the
ringing of many bells in my ears, mingled with silvery laughter, as
though the fiends were ringing jubilant peals within the pit.

Presently the sights grew dim and died away, but the chiming laughter
still continued.

I looked up. It was Colliver laughing, and his face was that of an
arch-devil.

"It does me good to see you," he explained; "oh, yes, it is honey to
my soul. Fool! and a thousand times fool! that ever I should have
lived to triumph thus over you and your accursed house!"

Once more his voice grew shrill and his eyes flashed; once more he
collected him