A second or two, that seemed like years, passed in that awful suspense; then the figure--living or dead--disappeared among the trees. With a moan of terror he managed to stand upright, and, mopping his livid face with his handkerchief, struggled for courage to call out. His voice came at last, and huskily and feebly he called: “Who’s there?” No answer came. He waited for a minute, until the use of his legs came back to him, then set off, as fast as his trembling limbs would permit, down the avenue. Almost before he had reached the lodge, the figure came out from among the trees, and, gliding from the shelter of one trunk to another, made for the railing and looked after him. Then, if Bartley Bradstone could have summoned up courage to look back, he would have seen that what he had taken for the wraith of the woman he had shot was Seth the gypsy, clad in an ordinary carter’s frock and wearing a slouch hat that nearly concealed his face. Seth got over the fence and stood looking up and down the avenue warily. The smock was torn with brambles, Seth’s face looked grimy and drink-worn, and there was a furtive, sinister gleam in his black, cunning eyes. “Give you a fright, did I, Master Bradstone!” he muttered, huskily. “I’ll give you one or two more afore I’ve done with you.” Then he was about to leap over the railing back into the wood again, when something white lying on the ground where Bartley Bradstone had been standing, caught his eye. He pounced upon it as only a lurcher or a gypsy can, and turned it over with eager curiosity. It was the letter containing Bartley Bradstone’s confession, which he had pulled out from his pocket with his handkerchief. Seth shrugged his shoulders. “Only a letter. ’Tain’t no use to me; if it ’ud been his hankercher, now!” With a contemptuous grimace he tore it in half, and was about to fling it away, when he stopped his hand. “I dunno,” he muttered, “perhaps I’d better keep it; he might give me something for it. I’ll offer it him anyhow.” And he thrust it carelessly into his trousers-pocket. CHAPTER XXXI. “WE SHALL SAVE HIM YET.” Bessie took the note up to Olivia’s room, and found her still kneeling beside the bed, her arms stretched out upon the white coverlid in utter exhaustion; and yet the hands were moving to and fro restlessly, as if the brain were racked by anxious thought. Bessie bent over her and softly drew the long hair from her face, which was burning hot. “Ah, miss, you will be ill again!” she said, reproachfully. “And he said I was to take care of you.” “Yes! It is always of me or some one else he is thinking!” Olivia moaned, impatiently. “Always of some one else--never of himself. Oh, Bessie, what shall I do to save him? What shall I do? Every hour, every minute, that slips by so stealthily and swiftly, adds to the danger. I can’t think; I can’t even pray. What shall I do?” and she wrung her hands.