Insomnia may not be a disease, but it is a very serious complaint at the moment of suffering. There are some people who possess mentality of a calibre that permits them to lie awake during long and dark nights. Others, of a higher-strung fibre, cast bedclothes and resolution to the corners of the room, and rise to smoke, to read--or do anything rather than endure the torture of wakefulness caused by a troubled mind. Raife rose from the high, old-fashioned bed and proceeded for a light and his dressing-gown, when he heard sounds that arrested his movement and attention. Premonition of danger displays a very high sense in animals. The later stages of civilisation have made matters so safe for human beings, that the premonitive sense is becoming rare. Environment undoubtedly affects such a sense, and the proximity of the library to Raife's bedroom may have affected his alertness, and kept him awake. Certainly there was something, somebody moving, and the noise was in the direction of the library--the room of sad, tragic association. "Nerves" do not imply timidity, and Raife of the Reymingtounes was hardly likely to be a timid man. At the moment he was possessed of a strong spirit of revenge. His father had been cruelly shot by a burglar in that very library, where those stealthy sounds were proceeding from. He did not wait to don a dressing-gown. Hastily snatching his Browning revolver from under his pillow, he proceeded along the dark, oak-panelled corridor. Gloomy old helmets, empty shells of armour that had protected his ancestors in many a fray, frowned upon him. As he crept quietly, but quickly, over the familiar soft carpets, he thought also of the baroness's jewels, those gems that attracted trouble in their train. They were in the iron safe embedded in the wall of the library. If there was to be a vendetta, he--Raife Remington--would see to it that the feud was well sustained on his side. The last few yards he covered on tip-toe, gripping his Browning in his hand. At last, he was peeping through the door, determined to have the first shot in the contest that had been forced on him. All such contests are cowardly. The midnight marauder carries long odds in his favour--the greatest being the unwillingness of the man, who is protecting his own property, to fire first. In this aggravated case his father's spirit, through the memory of his dying words, impelled Raife to fire first and shoot straight. Justice was on his side and Raife brought the revolver to a level for aim, as he peered into the room. The sight that met him was so staggering that he involuntarily gasped.