Whether the fellow was right or mistaken, this explanation of Madeline's disappearance seemed to give me what I can only compare to a smack in the face. I stared at the speaker in speechless astonishment. If the tale he told so glibly and circumstantially was true, farewell, so far as I was concerned, to belief in the love or purity of women. Madeline Rowan, that creature of a poet's dream, on the eve of her marriage with Charles Carriston to fly, whether wed or unwed mattered little, with another man! And yet, she was but a woman. Carriston--or Carr, as she only knew him--was in her eyes poor. The companion of her flight might have won her with gold. Such things have been. Still-- My rapid and wrongful meditations were cut short in an unexpected way. Suddenly I saw Mr. Sharpe dragged bodily out of his chair and thrown on the floor, while Carriston, standing over him, thrashed the man vigorously with his own ash stick--a convenient weapon, so convenient that I felt Mr. Sharpe could not have selected a stick more appropriate for his own chastisement. So Carriston seemed to think, for he laid on cheerfully some eight or ten good cutting strokes. Nevertheless, being a respectable doctor and a man of peace, I was compelled to interfere. I held Carriston's arm while Mr. Sharpe struggled to his feet, and after collecting his hat and his pocket-book, stood glaring vengefully at his assailant, and rubbing the while such of the weals on his back as he could reach. Annoyed as I felt at the unprofessional _fracas_, I could scarcely help laughing at the man's appearance. I doubt the possibility of any one looking heroic after such a thrashing. "I'll have the law for this," he growled. "I ain't paid to be beaten by a madman." "You're paid to do my work, not another's," said Carriston. "Go to the man who has over-bribed you and sent you to tell me your lies. Go to him, tell him that once more he has failed. Out of my sight." As Carriston showed signs of recommencing hostile operations, the man flew as far as the door-way. There, being in comparative safety, he turned with a malignant look. "You'll smart for this," he said; "when they lock you up as a raving lunatic I'll try and get a post as keeper." I was glad to see that Carriston paid no attention to this parting shaft. He turned his back scornfully, and the fellow left the room and the house. "Now are you convinced?" asked Carriston, turning to me. "Convinced of what? That his tale is untrue, or that he has been misled, I am quite certain." "Tush! That is not worth consideration. Don't you see that Ralph has done all this? I set that man to watch him; he found out the espionage; suborned my agent, or your agent, I should say; sent him here with a trumped-up tale. Oh, yes; I was to believe that Madeline had deserted me--that was to drive me out of my senses. My cousin is a fool after all!"