On the landing above a dim night light burnt. It was a broad landing, carpetted with a square blue carpet and there were two easy chairs and a small table-nest. Ursula had told him she sometimes read there, for there was a skylight overhead which could be opened on hot days. Here, again, the carpet was in disorder and on the blue settee-- He bit his lip to stop the cry that came. Blood! A great patch near one end. He touched it frightfully, and looked at the tips of his fingers. Blood! His knees gave way under him, and he sat down for a second, then with a tremendous effort, rose again and went to the door of Ursula’s room and turned the knob. Shading the candle with his hands, he walked into the room. A figure was lying on the bed: the brown hair lay fan-like across the pillow, the face was turned away from him, and then--His heart stood still. “Who is that?” said a sleepy voice. Ursula turned on her elbow, shading her eyes from the light of the candle. “Ursula!” he breathed. “Why--it is Tab!” He caught a glitter of steel as she thrust something back under the pillow, that she had half withdrawn. “Tab!” She sat up in bed. “Why, Tab, what is wrong?” The candlestick was shaking in his hand, and he put it down on the table. “What is wrong, dear?” she asked. He could not answer; falling to his knees by the bedside, he trembled his relief into the crook of his arm. XXXVII Rex Lander was smiling as he drove through the rain, for it seemed to him that a great trouble had passed from his mind. The solution of all his difficulties had appeared miraculously. He did not hurry, the end was sure now and the woman who had completely occupied his mind for four years, whose portraits by the hundred he had secretly treasured, whose face he had watched, to whose voice he had listened night after night, until she had become an obsession that excluded all other thoughts and fancies, was his! He had hated his sometime friend since the day Tab had made mock of his adoration. He had loathed him when the incredible fact had been proved beyond doubting, that Tab had stolen into the girl’s heart, and had won her in his absence. He never doubted that with his great wealth, Ursula Ardfern was his wife for the asking. He had planned his life on this supposition. Wealth! The possession of great power, the ability to bestow upon the object of his choice all that human vanity or human weakness could desire.