Then the squire dismissed them wondering, and, folding up the paper, placed it among the letters of his dead wife. It seemed to him that it was an answer to them, and should be with them. He put them back into the box he had taken them from. It was a small deed-box, and contained all Mrs. Heritage’s jewellery. Her wedding-ring he wore himself; but her diamonds, all her bracelets and trinkets, he had refused to part with. He had gathered them together, and put them in this box with her letters, and a few of the little treasures that had been dear to her in life. There was a small locket with a curl from baby George’s head; there was the hair he cut with trembling fingers as he stooped to kiss the marble brow of his lost one for the last time. When he had placed the letters and the paper in the box, he drew out the jewel-cases and opened them. He had not looked at them for years. To-night he was living in the past. He opened case after case, and gazed lovingly at the gleaming jewels within. But as the diamonds sparkled in the gaslight, and the rubies and the emeralds shot forth their coloured rays, as though eager to escape from the long darkness in which they had been imprisoned, the old squire thought not of their value and beauty, but of the loving bosom the necklace once lay upon, of the gentle wrists the bracelets once clasped. As he laid them back in the box and closed it with a sigh, he fancied he heard a sound in the passage outside. He hurried to see what it was. The library door was slightly ajar and the gas was lit. As he turned he heard, or fancied he heard, a rustle, as though some one who had been peering into the room had moved away. There was no one about belonging to the house, he knew. The servants had gone to the servants’ hall, and they never came near him except when he rang. It was about nine o’clock, and they would be all at supper down below. Who was watching him?—who was spying on his movements? He walked rapidly towards the door. At the same moment he heard a noise behind him, and felt the wind blowing in from an open window. He turned at the sound, and would have shouted for help, but a hand was thrust over his mouth and a cloth was thrown over his head. A tall, burly man, with a crape mask on, had him in his grasp. ‘It can’t be helped; he’d have raised a hullabaloo in a minute,’ cried the man. ‘Quick with the stuff, while I hold him!’ Some one, who never spoke, and whom the squire could not see, was moving about the room. ‘Now out with the gas and bolt!’ cried the man who held the squire. At the same time he gave the squire a violent push, that sent him full-length on the floor. There was a noise at the window, a thud on the lawn below, and then all was still. The force with which the squire had been hurled to the ground had only partially stunned him. In a few minutes he came round and dragged himself up. He was trembling and exhausted, and the place was quite dark.