Fearful of his pistol, Cheyne leaped for his life. He landed on his feet, staggered, recovered himself and darted like a hare across the flower beds. With any ordinary luck he should have got clear away, but Blessington had picked up a broom as he ran, and this he threw with fatal aim. It caught Cheyne between the legs and he fell headlong. Other steps came hurrying up. By the light streaming from the back door he saw an arm raised. It fell and something crashed with a sickening thud on his head. He saw a vivid shower of sparks, there was a roaring in his ears, great dark waves seemed to rise up and encompass him, and he remembered no more. Chapter VII Miss Joan Merrill After what seemed ages of forgetfulness a confused sense of pain began to make itself felt in Maxwell Cheyne’s being, growing in force and definition as he gradually struggled back to consciousness. At first his whole body ached sickeningly, but as time passed the major suffering concentrated itself in his head. It throbbed as if it would burst, and he felt a terrible oppression, as if the weight of the universe rested upon it. So on the border line of consciousness he hovered for still further ages of time. Presently by gradual stages the memory of his recent adventure returned to him, and he began vaguely to realize that the murderous attempt which had been made on him had failed and that he still lived. Encouraged by this reassuring thought, he hesitatingly essayed the feat of opening his eyes. For a time he gazed, confused by the dim shapes about him, but at last he came more fully to himself and was able to register what he saw. It was almost dark, indeed most of the arc over which his eyes could travel was perfectly so. But here and there he noticed parallelograms of a less inky blackness, and after some time the significance of these penetrated his brain and he knew where he was. He was lying on his back on the ground in the half-built house from which he had taken the ladder, and the parallelograms were the openings in the walls into which doors and windows would afterwards be fitted. Against the faint light without, which he took to be that of the moonlit sky, he could see dimly the open joists of the floor above him, a piece of the herringbone strutting of which cut across the space for one of the upstairs windows. Feeling slightly better he tried his pocket, to find, as he expected, that the tracing was gone. Presently he attempted some more extensive movement. But at once an intolerable pang shot through him, and, sick and faint, he lay still. With a dawning horror he wondered whether his back might not be broken, or whether the blow on his head might not have produced paralysis. He groaned aloud and sank back once more into unconsciousness.