“What a fool I was!” he said to himself. “It was really a case of nerves, for if ever a man was possessed of a mad frenzy to his own undoing, I was that fellow. I felt certain when I went down into that vault that a murdered child lay there. The thought maddened me. Money was nothing to me, even Barbara did not seem of the slightest consequence. To win her was little to me then. I was full of the one sole maddening fear that Piers had come by his death by foul means. But those two great consultants in London set me straight, and the chemist finished the business. It is odd though that I still distrust Tarbot. “What did he come sneaking down here about, and why did Mrs. Pelham go off to town so suddenly? I hate the man still and I distrust him more than ever. He would do me a mischief if he could—not a doubt of that. By the way—I am sorry old Crayshaw heard me groaning in the vault.” Dick paused in his rapid thoughts to go up to the tomb of his ancestors and bend over it. “By the way,” he considered, “Barbara wishes to have the service in the chapel on Christmas Day. I may as well look in and see if it is all right.” He entered the chapel, the door of which stood open, and went and stood under the tablet. He read the inscription to little Piers. It was a simple one, and a suitable verse of Scripture was engraved under it. He turned on his heel and went out. In spite of himself, and very much to his own wonder, he found little by little his good spirits slipping away from him. He could not account for this, but he had to admit that it was the case. He entered the little churchyard, and crossed again to where the gloomy vault of the Pelhams stood. “What a hideous place!” he said to himself. “How improved are the modern ideas with regard to burial!” As he stood close to the vault, with his hand resting on the stone which contained inscriptions to his dead and gone ancestors, he thought again of that night of terror when he had gone down the steps and passed the gloomy portals. He remembered the look of the place as the lantern threw its strong light upon it, the coffins ranged on their shelves, some on the floor. He remembered that he had trampled on the rotten boards, some of which creaked under his weight. Finally he had stood close to the shelf where the coffin of the youngest baronet of the house had just been placed. He recalled it all now—the damp feel of the place, the weird light from his lantern, his own grief and oppression, nay, even terror. “I must have been mad at the time,” he said to himself. As he said the words a hand was laid on his arm. He turned quickly. A man in plain clothes, a total stranger, was standing near him. “Am I right in supposing that I am addressing Sir Richard Pelham?” asked the man. “That is my name,” said Dick. He started back as he spoke. “Who are you?” he continued. “I do not know your face.” “I am a stranger to these parts, sir; but I have come here to say a word to you.”