“So my doctors thought, but this one was young and very clever. He thought it was something else, and it was. He cut it away. That’s all.” He smiled in Cylmer’s puzzled face. “But the railway people. How was it they didn’t know?” Sir Gaspard laughed out. “You’re very anxious I should be an impostor. Did you wish to marry my heiress?” he cried cheerfully. “There was no mark or wound on me; the woman never connected me with the accident to the train, nor did any one, till I was recovered and able to tell them. It was all so simple that no one ever thought of it.” “You never wrote,” wonderingly. “No! I couldn’t have waited for the answer. When I was fit to write I was fit to travel, so I came straight to Bolton, here, and he told me things that brought me home on the double-quick. It’s all too awful. And to think it was that will I made that was such a pitfall! Will that poor child die?” “No.” Cylmer put down the hair-brush he had all the time been holding. “Thank God, no!” he said slowly. “For I am going to marry her.” “Marry her.” It took all Sir Gaspard could do not to exclaim in amazement. “Marry the daughter of a woman not yet out of suspicion of murder, with the theft of the diamonds on her to a certainty!” Cylmer nodded. “Wait. I’ll tell you all,” he said, and Sir Gaspard listened in wonder. “Marry her,” he had said, as though she were a leper, and but for her Cristiane would be cold in her grave. He stretched out his hand and took Cylmer’s in a clasp of gratitude, without a spoken word. “Have you seen Cristiane?” For the first time Cylmer thought of her. Sir Gaspard smiled. “Didn’t you hear us in the passage?” he asked. “I only persuaded her to leave me for ten minutes by saying that you were certain to come to the door half-dressed. She’s wild with joy; she can hardly believe in me yet.” “She missed you.” And if the tone was dry Sir Gaspard did not notice it. Not yet could Mr. Cylmer bear any good-will to Cristiane. Only one thing troubled Cylmer now. With Sir Gaspard’s return things were smoothed out, indeed, all but this. It hung over him more and more heavily as Ismay grew better, and at last could talk to him. Those stolen diamonds that could not be explained away! His mind was full of them as he sat with Ismay alone in her sitting-room. But he kept his trouble off his lips, and talked of other things that he might not see it reflected in her eyes. “You never asked me how I managed the ghost-music,” she said suddenly, with her old, lovely smile, that was so much more wistful than of old. “No. How did you? For it played of itself before you meddled with it, Thomas says.”