He was on the threshold of his door when he turned and confronted Captain Standish. All the rest had followed Bella. These two were face to face with each other, and alone. ‘What do you want in my house?’ asked Mr. Piper, sternly. ‘I should like to stop till--till the doctors have made their examination--to know if things are so bad as they seem to think,’ faltered the captain, thoroughly crestfallen; and then, with a sudden burst of passion, he cried, ‘Can’t you understand that I feel myself to blame for this? It was I that put the notion of hunting in her head. I feel myself her murderer.’ ‘Yes, I understand perfectly,’ answered Mr. Piper. ‘I’ve got your letters in my pocket--your letters to my wife. Do you understand that, scoundrel? First you perverted her mind, and then you killed her. That’s enough, I should think. You can want nothing more in my house; but when you boast of having seduced my wife, tell your friends that among all the husbands you have injured, one, at least, left a lasting mark upon you.’ Mr. Piper seized the captain by the collar, and with one crushing blow from his clenched fist sent him rolling down the steps. Captain Standish was an accomplished pugilist, but that unexpected blow carried all the force of a strong man’s outraged honour, and might have felled an ox. The tall slim figure swayed to and fro, swerved to the left, and fell face downwards against the base of a stone column. CHAPTER XX. LET SILENCE BE ABOUT HER NAME. BELLA was dying. The doctors had pronounced their verdict. The spine had been fatally injured. A few hours of life--hours in which there would be happily little or no suffering--alone remained to Mr. Piper’s second wife. Very brief had been the story of his courtship and marriage. He had sent off a groom to Great Yafford on one of the carriage horses to summon the most famous surgeon in the town, but Dr. Milroyd, who was a physician of some standing, and the humble Mr. Namby, who was not without experience in surgery, assured Mr. Piper that the whole college of surgeons would be powerless to prolong Bella’s life for an hour beyond the natural running out of the sand in a glass that had been turned for the last time. ‘You can go and sit by her if you like,’ said Mr. Namby, kindly. ‘It can do no harm. She would like you to be there, I dare say, poor thing. And don’t you think her family ought to be sent for?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Mr. Piper. ‘I dare say she’d like to see them.’ They were standing in the corridor outside Bella’s room. That strange tranquillity of Mr. Piper’s impressed the doctors. They ascribed it to the intensity of his grief. He was stunned, no doubt, poor fellow, by the sudden calamity.