"It wasn't that that upset me," he answered. "It was a horrible idea which flashed upon me just for a moment. The face which peered in at the window--you saw it--was horribly like the face of a man who is dead--whom I know to be dead. It gave me, just while the idea lasted, a sensation which I hope I shall never experience again as long as I live. It was ghastly." The face of the dead! It was not a cheerful thought. But I looked at the wrecked door and window of the carriage and felt immediately reassured. Our assailant, whoever he might have been, was no ghostly one. There was undeniable evidence of his material presence and strength in the shattered glass, the wrenched woodwork, and the wound on Mr. Marx's forehead. The carriage pulled up with a jerk. We had reached my home. "Hadn't you better come in and bathe your forehead, Mr. Marx?" I suggested hesitatingly. He shook his head and declined. "No, thanks. I'll get back to the Castle as soon as I can and doctor it myself. Good-bye, Morton. If I don't see you again before you go, I wish you every success at Mr. Randall's." I thanked him warmly, shook his offered hand, and, shutting the carriage-door, called out to Burdett to drive on. For a moment or two I stood in the road watching the lights as they rapidly grew fainter and fainter in the distance. Then I turned slowly up the path towards the house. Half-way there I stopped short and, holding my breath, listened intently. The wind had dropped and the rain had almost ceased, but the night was still as dark as pitch. I listened with strained ears and beating heart and soon I knew that I had not been mistaken. Coming down the hill between Rothland Wood gate and where I was, along the road by which we had just come, I could hear the faint, but nevertheless unmistakable, sound of light, running footsteps. Turning back, I stole softly down the path and stood in the middle of the road, waiting. CHAPTER XIX. A STRANGE ATTACK. It could not in reality have been more than a minute or two, although it seemed to me then a terribly long while, before I again heard the sound which had attracted my attention. When I did, it was quite close at hand, just at the beginning of the range of farm-buildings which skirted the road. There was no possibility of any mistake. The situation was sufficiently plain, at any rate. Scarcely fifty yards away a man was coming running towards me, either barefooted or with very soft shoes on; and it was past midnight, pitch dark, and a lonely road.