He looked with momentary curiosity at a weather-worn sign post which pointed forlornly where four roads met. It was falling to pieces with age, but yet it must have been put up there since the morning. He had never seen it before. He shouted to the driver that he had taken the wrong road. The man pointed with his whip to where, a mile away, the smoke of Barford rose among its trees. The landscape suddenly slid into familiar lines again. He recognised it, and sank back, confused and exhausted. The effort of speaking had hurt his throat horribly. Was he going mad? How could his throat hurt him like this--if it wasn't--if Michael had not---- He thrust thought from him. He would wait till he got home, till his own roof was safely over him, the familiar walls round him. This was his gate. Here was his own door, with his butler looking somewhat surprised, standing on the steps. He found himself getting out, and giving orders. He listened to himself telling the servant to pay the fly and to send word by it to his dog-cart to return home. Of course he had gone to Lostford in the dog-cart. He had forgotten that. Then he heard his own voice ordering a whiskey and soda to be brought to him in the library. And he walked there. The afternoon post had arrived with the newspapers and he took up a paper. But it was printed in some language unknown to him, though he recognised some of the letters. How long had he been gone, an hour, a day, a year? He looked at the clock. Half-past two. But this great shock with which the air was still rocking might have stopped it. He put his ear to it. Strange! It was going. And it always stopped so easily, even if the housemaid dusted it. Was it half-past two in the afternoon or in the night? There was a band of sunshine across the floor and outside the gardens and the downs were steeped in it. Perhaps it was day. The butler brought in a tray, and placed it near him. "Have you had luncheon, sir?" Wentworth thought a moment, and then said "yes." "And will Mr. Michael return to-day, sir?" Wentworth remembered some old, old prehistoric arrangement by which Michael was to have come back with him to Barford this afternoon. "No," he said, the room suddenly darkening till the sunshine on the floor was barely visible. "No. He is not coming back." The man hesitated a moment, and then left the room. Wentworth groped for the flagon of whiskey, poured out a quantity, and drank it raw. Then he waited for the nightmare to lift. His mind cleared gradually. His scattered faculties came sneaking back like defeated soldiers to camp. But they had all one tale of disaster and one only to tell. He must needs believe them. _Michael had tried to kill him._ Whatever else shifted that remained true. Wentworth bowed his stiffening head upon his hands, and the sweat ran down his face.