"He's wise," said Malherb. "He feels that fresh air and daylight will best serve his purpose now. We shall find him anon." Then he approached Grace and took her into his arms. "Come what may, I'm in time. This is the greatest day of all my life. You shall hear about that. I could forgive the world--I could pardon all my enemies! But let those who know where Norcot bides hasten to him and bring him hither. He must answer for much. And answer to me he shall before I break bread. That he should prove a knave!" "If evil has been done," said Gertrude Norcot, "remember that my brother is still absent. Do not wrong the absent, Maurice Malherb. Wait until he can speak for himself. Yet ill has without doubt overtaken him. Nothing but sudden tribulation can have kept him from us." Her prophecy was scarcely uttered when the man Mason ran past Putt and entered the room without ceremony. "Come," he said; "'tis all over with 'em--both. One be dead an' t'other dying. They'm bringing 'em 'pon hurdles. Keeper Rowe heard gun-fire, and at last, after searching in the spinneys above an hour, he found what had failed out there. Oh, my God!--all up with poor master! Dead as a nail, an' drowned in his own blood by the looks of it." They hastened out upon the terrace, there to find the soldiers and a dozen working-men crowding round two hurdles. With a bitter cry Gertrude flung herself upon one, and pressed her arms about her brother. In the bosom of death he reposed; his features were ash-coloured; peace marked his countenance. Upon each of his eyes the labouring men had set a penny to hide them, but the coins fell off as his sister flung herself upon Norcot's corpse, and underneath, filmed with death, yet reflecting something of the vanished man himself, his blue eyeballs stared upwards through a glaze. They altered his expression and brought back to it a shadow of Norcot's eternal smile. "Shot, your honour," said the keeper to Mr. Malherb. "The rights of it be hid, unless yonder man have got enough wind in him to tell it. Us found Mr. Norcot wi' a hole blowed through his poor back by one of them damned spring-guns; an' t'other be shot too--through the side. Doctor's coming, for I sent a lad after un; but how it all fell out us'll never know, onless this poor blid can say." While he spoke, Grace knelt by John Lee, and he saw her and smiled. Her arms enfolded him. He had lived to rest his head upon her breast and feel her tears flow. "John, John--dear John; you must not die! All is well--you must live. There was something hidden. We shall never know. He said that I was blind, and he told me that my love was blind. And you knew what the mystery was. Oh, if you could speak! But you mustn't try till you are strong again. Rest--shut your eyes--God will never let you die, dear John." The man spoke faintly. "Is Mr. Stark there?"