I took the road down the hill to Wraxall, and thence, by a circular route by way of Ganbrook Farm and the old church at Atworth, back to the Hall. I hoped that they might take that road to Bath, but, although I walked for more than an hour, I met not a soul. A church clock chimed three as I came down the hill from Kingsdown, and it was already growing light ere I gained the terrace of the Hall again. I climbed back into Beryl's room by the ladder still suspended there. Her absence was as yet undiscovered. Everything was just as I had left it an hour and a half before. I was undecided, at that moment, whether to alarm the household or to affect ignorance of the whole thing and await developments of the strange affair. Judged from all points the latter course seemed the best; therefore, still in indecision, I crept back to my room, and, entering there, closed the door. I sank into a chair, exhausted after my walk, when a sudden pain shot through me from head to foot, causing me to utter an involuntary cry. The next instant the same sensation of being frozen crept over me, as it had done outside that room in Gloucester Square, and again on the previous night when dancing with my beloved. The same rigidity of my muscles, the same aphasia and amnesia, the same complex symptoms that I had before experienced, and so well remembered, were again upon me. My lower limbs seemed frozen and lifeless, my heart was beating so faintly that it seemed almost imperceptible, and my senses seemed so utterly dulled that I was unable either to cry out or to move. If I had but a little of that curious liquid which Hoefer had injected! I blamed myself for not asking him to give me some in case of emergency. The unknown woman in black had left again behind her the curious unseen influence that so puzzled the greatest known medico-legist. The sensation was much sharper, and of far longer duration, than that which had so suddenly fallen upon me when dancing. Reader, I can only describe it, even now, I sit recounting to you the curious story, as the icy touch of the grim Avenger. The hand of Death was actually upon me.