It was a doctor that I fetched, and not the police, for Mr Barclay lay there quite insensible, and smelling as if he had taken to eating opium, while Ned Gunning had so awful a cut across his temple that he would soon have bled to death. The doctor came and dressed the rascal's wounds as he was laid in my pantry; but he shook his head over Mr Barclay, and with reason; for two months had passed away before we got him down to Dorking, and saw his pale face beginning to get something like what it was, with Miss Virginia, forgiving and gentle, always by his side. But I'm taking a very big jump, and saying nothing about our going across to the house opposite as soon as it was daylight, to find the door open and no one there; while the state of that basement and what we saw there, and the artfulness of the people, and the labour they had given in driving that passage right under the road as true as a die, filled me with horror, and cost Sir John five hundred pounds. Why, their measurements and calculations were as true as true; and if it hadn't been for me missing that paper--which, of course, it was Edward Gunning who stole it--those scoundrels would have carried off that golden incubus as sure as we were alive. But they didn't get it; and they had gone off scot-free, all but our late footman, who had concussion of the brain in the hospital where he was took, Sir John saying that he would let the poor wretch get well before he handed him over to the police. But, bless you, he never meant to. He was too pleased to get Mr Barclay back, and to find that he hadn't the least idea about the golden incubus being in the cellar; while as to the poor lad's sorrow about his madness and that wretched woman, who was Ned Gunning's wife, it was pitiful to see. The other scoundrels had got away; and all at once we found that Gunning had discharged himself from the hospital; and by that time the house over the way was put straight, the builder telling me in confidence that he thought Sir John must have been mad to attempt to make such a passage as that to connect his property without consulting a regular business man. That was the morning when he got his cheque for the repairs, and the passage--which he called "Drinkwater's Folly"--had disappeared. Time went on, and the golden incubus went on too--that is, to a big bank in the Strand, for we were at Dorking now, where those young people spent a deal of time in the open air; and Mr Barclay used to say he could never forgive himself; but his father did, and so did some one else. Who did? Why, you don't want telling that. Heaven bless her sweet face! And bless him, too, for a fine young fellow as strong--ay, and as weak, too, of course--as any man. Dear, dear, dear! I'm pretty handy to eighty now, and Sir John just one year ahead; and I often say to myself, as I think of what men will do for the sake of a pretty face--likewise for the sake of gold: "This is a very curious world."