As far as we could see he had sustained a severe concussion, but I noticed he had a big bruise on his forehead as well as a swelling on the back of his head. We had laid him on the sofa in the parlour, and had just completed our investigation when the doctor arrived. I shook hands and explained how I had found my friend in the open grave by the north transept so unexpectedly. 'He hadn't had--well, let us say, too much supper?' asked the physician, after he had felt the pulse and examined the limbs to see if anything was broken. 'No,' I replied. 'We had supper together; he had a lemon squash and a cup of coffee only to drink.' 'He's been in for a fight then,' said the doctor. 'Got one on the brow, then falling into the grave has bruised the back of the head. He's suffering from concussion, but nothing more, so far as I can see. Was he a quarrelsome fellow?' he inquired. 'Strange place in any event to come to blows in--and with whom? for we're a peaceable folk here save perhaps at the annual horse fair when gipsies and others congregate in numbers, and whisky bottles are everywhere.' I assured him that Maxwell was a quiet Oxford scholar, and incapable of brawling. The doctor drew a bottle of strong smelling salts from his pocket and applied them to Maxwell's nostrils. 'He's coming round,' he said; 'we'll just give him some sal volatile, and then to bed and a long rest. In a day or two he should be all right again.' Maxwell now opened his eyes, looked about him dizzily, then said faintly, 'Where am I?' Then still faintly, so low that only I caught the words, '_I could swear it was Wharton himself_.' Thereon we took him upstairs, undressed him and put him to bed, and after he had had his dose of sal volatile the doctor departed, assuring me that my friend was 'all right,' but that he would look in again about midday. I saw him off at the front door, then I turned to the 'Boots,' and said in his ear, 'Look here, I'm going out to see if I can't find out who the fellow was who tackled my friend. If I want to be let in before daybreak I'll come and tap on your window in the yard.' I slid a _pourboire_ into his hand and went off softly across the street to the church once more, for I felt almost certain that the fellow--whoever he was--would come back some time or another to see how his victim had fared, since conceivably the blow might have proved mortal. Once in the churchyard I made my way on tiptoe to the graveside. There I waited in the re-entering angle of the transept, where the shadow of the church was darkest, in the hope of Maxwell's assailant soon returning to the scene of the encounter. I did not venture to light my pipe, fearing the smell of tobacco might discover me. I waited with infinite patience till the moon lost her radiance and a pale light glimmered through the eastern trees. Nothing had stirred, no sound had I caught save that of an owl in the distance.