him, will you?" she said, looking at Garvington while the
secretary slipped out of the room; "you do so at your own cost, my lord.
That forged letter won't tell in your favor. Ha!" she started to her
feet. "What's that! Who's here?"

She might well ask. There was a struggle going on in the passage, and
she heard cries for help. Miss Greeby flung open the sitting-room door,
and Silver, embracing Mother Cockleshell, tumbled at her feet. "She got
in by the door you left open," cried Silver breathlessly, "hold her or
we are lost; we'll never get away."

"No, you won't!" shouted the dishevelled old woman, producing a knife to
keep Miss Greeby at bay. "Chaldea came to the camp and I learned through
Kara how she'd brought you down, my Gentile lady. I went to tell the
golden rye, and he's on the way here with the village policeman. You're
done for."

"Not yet." Miss Greeby darted under the uplifted knife and caught
Gentilla round the waist. The next moment the old woman was flung
against the wall, breathless and broken up. But she still contrived to
hurl curses at the murderess of her grandson.

"I saw you shoot him; I saw you shoot him," screamed Mother Cockleshell,
trying to rise.

"Silver, make for the motor; it's near the camp; follow the path,"
ordered Miss Greeby breathlessly; "there's no time to be lost. As to
this old devil--" she snatched up a lamp as the secretary dashed out of
the house, and flung it fairly at Gentilla Stanley. In a moment the old
woman was yelling with agony, and scrambled to her feet a pillar of
fire. Miss Greeby laughed in a taunting manner and hurled another lamp
behind the sofa. "You'd have given me up also, would you, Garvington?"
she cried in her deep tone; "take that, and that, and that."

Lamp after lamp was smashed and burst into flames, until only one was
left. Then Miss Greeby, seeing with satisfaction that the entire room
was on fire and hearing the sound of hasty footsteps and the echoing of
distant voices, rushed in her turn from the cottage. As she bolted the
voice of Garvington screaming with pain and dread was heard as he came
to his senses to find himself encircled by fire. And Mother Cockleshell
also shrieked, not so much because of her agony as to stop Miss Greeby
from escaping.

"Rye! Rye! she's running; catch her; catch her. Aha--aha--aha!" and she
sank into the now blazing furnace of the room.

The walls of the cottage were of mud, the partitions and roof of wood
an