Again the moon broke through the clouds and shone with a faint light upon my father's pale, stern face. Francis recognised him at once. He threw his hands high over his head in a wild gesture of welcome and flung open the window. My father walked steadily forward into the room and I followed him. Francis, trembling with eagerness, stood between us. "See," he cried, pointing downwards, "is it not well done? See! Let me tell you about it. Quick! quick! He came! It was twilight! He was at the cabinet there. I stole out of the darkness. I flung my arms around him. He struggled. Ah, how he struggled; but it was all no use. Ha! ha! ha! I was too strong for him. I held him tighter and tighter, till I nearly strangled him, and he gasped and gurgled and moaned. Oh! it was fine to see him. Then I found a cord in the drawer there and I bound him, and while I fastened the knots I laughed and I talked to him. I talked about that night in the storm when he threw his father"--he pointed a long, quivering finger at me--"threw him into the slate quarry, and about that day when he came to the Castle gate and brought me to the plantation, and suddenly caught me by the throat till he thought he had strangled me, and beat me on the head. Ah, how my head has burned ever since, ever since, ever since! Ah, Milly, come to me! Milly, I am on fire! My head is on fire! Ah, ah!" The foam burst out from between his pallid, quivering lips, and his eyes, red and burning, suddenly closed. A ghastly change crept over his blood-stained, pallid face. He sank backwards and fell heavily upon the floor. We scarcely noticed him, for our eyes were bent elsewhere. The horror of that sight lived with me afterwards for many years, a haunting shadow over my life--disturbing even its sweetest moments, a hideous, maddening memory. I am not going to attempt to describe it. No words could express the horror of it. Such things are not to be written about. Even my father's iron nerve seemed to give way for a moment, and he stood by my side trembling, with his head buried in his hands. Then he sank on his knees and loosened the cords. "Thank God he is dead," he murmured fervently, as he felt the cold body and lifeless pulse, and cleared away the last fragments of disguise from the head and face. "You had better call Mr. Carrol in, Philip." Even as he spoke, a little awed group was silently filling the room, Carrol and his sergeant amongst them. But after all they were cheated of their task, for out in the moonlight John Francis lay stark, the madness gone from his white, still face, and the calm of death reigning there instead. CHAPTER LVI. THE END OF IT.