Tony caught her hands, and would have drawn her to him, but the girl shook off his grasp and slipped away, while the man stood still until the door closed behind her, and then shook his head. “Angry yet!” he said. “If one could only understand her—but it’s quite beyond me, and I’ve no inclination for further worries of any kind just now.” He turned towards the cupboard again, stopped a moment, and then, with a little impatient gesture, went out of the room. He did not see Violet again that night, and went to bed early, though it was long before he slept. It was early morning when he was awakened by the sound of a door being opened suddenly and a hasty running up and down. In a few minutes there were voices beneath him in the hall, while he huddled on his clothes; and going out he stood a moment, irresolute, in the corridor. A man who seemed to tread in a curious fashion was coming down the stairs, and passed apparently without noticing him. Then Tony gasped as the Darsley doctor he had sent for touched his arm, for he could see the man’s face dimly in the faint gray light. “Yes,” said the doctor quietly, answering the unspoken question. “I never expected it would come so suddenly, or I would have sent for you. Godfrey Palliser passed away ten minutes ago.” XVI — DANE COP IT was a dismal wet afternoon when Tony Palliser stood bareheaded beside a dripping yew tree under the eastern window of Northrop church. His head was aching, for the last few days and nights had not passed pleasantly with him, and confused as his thoughts were he realized what he owed to the man the bearers were then waiting to carry to his resting place. Godfrey Palliser had been autocratic and a trifle exacting, but he had taken his nephew into the place of his dead son, and bestowed all he had on him, while Tony remembered what his part had been. He had with false words hindered the dying man making a reparation which would have lightened his last hours. Tony was not usually superstitious, or addicted to speculation about anything that did not concern the present world, but as he glanced at the faces close packed beyond the tall marble pillar with its gleaming cross, and heard the words of ponderous import the surpliced vicar read, he was troubled by a vague sense of fear. Godfrey Palliser had gone out into the unknown, unforgiving, and with heart hardened against his kinsman who had done no wrong, but it seemed to Tony that the man who had deceived him would be held responsible.