"'E do, do 'e?" replied Smith, his anger abating, and breaking into a hoarse laugh; "sure, Oi would not touch yees at all, at all except wid a pair ave steel nippers." Then he put on his coat, picked up the stick and commenced to poke Rutley toward the door, saying meanwhile, much to Rutley's frowning mortification, but helpless resistance: "March, yees blue-blooded gintleman, with the appetite for a pinitintiary risidence. March, yees thavin' ruffian, march!" Scowling and turning, yet maintaining his always haughty bearing, Rutley passed "off the stage" by the back stairs, accompanied by his guards, but as Sam had declared, "game to the last." In order to avoid creating excitement by appearing within view of the little sorrowful group, now near the front of the house, they placed him in a vine-covered arbor, which was convenient and, leaving Smith to guard him, Sam hurried off to inform the officers of their capture. CHAPTER XXIII. Down on the beach they found her--the woman upon whom the blow had fallen so cruelly, and from whom the "grim sickle" had so recently turned aside. She was sitting on a low grassy knoll, gentle and pensive, a vacant stare in her sweet brown eyes as they wistfully scanned the surface of the water. "Oh, heavens! We must get her to the house at once! Go, Sam, bring the carriage down. Haste, haste!" urged Mr. Harris. And then John Thorpe saw her. Absorbed in deep meditation of his wrong to his innocent wife, ashamed and sorrowful, he was proceeding to the little depot, when, observing the frantic rush down the slope, and desiring to ascertain its cause, yet with an indefinable panicky feeling that seemed to freeze the very blood in his veins, he followed on. Without an instant of delay, in a moment, he had leaped to her side, tenderly clasped her to his heart, and with a voice trembling with emotion, said: "Oh, my darling wife, my pure, sweet, injured Constance! Forgive me! It was all a terrible mistake!" "I must go now. The storm is nearly over. I know that she is in the water, and the lilies are hiding her from me. But I shall find her. Give me the paddles. Save Dorothy." Constance had spoken in a soft, quiet voice. It had no touch of bitterness, no plaint of sadness; yet the yearning note of a heart dry with most intense grief was there--sounded on the chord of dethroned reason. When she began to speak, he looked into her eyes with an eager, appealing tenderness, expecting a responsive, forgiving tear, but instead he met a gentle, strange, vacant stare. As she proceeded he held her from him at arms' length, bewildered and confused for the moment in his interpretation of her meaning, and then the truth burst upon him. Shocked and horrified, he cried out in the anguish of his heart, "Merciful heaven, she is mad!" And then his eyes fell on her wet garments.