Mary stopped with her cousin and asked terrified questions, while Sir Walter, calling to Masters, hastened upstairs, followed by Septimus May. The clergyman was also agitated, yet in his concern there persisted a note almost of triumph. "It is there!" he cried. "It is close to us, watching us, powerless to touch either you or me. But this unhappy sceptic proved an easy victim." "Would to God I had listened to you yesterday," said Sir Walter. "Then this innocent man had not perhaps been snatched from life." "You were directed not to listen. Your heart was hardened. His hour had come." "I cannot believe it. We may restore him. It is impossible that he can be dead in a moment." They stood over the detective, and Masters and Fred Caunter, with courage and presence of mind, carried him out into the corridor. The butler spoke. "Run for the brandy, Fred," he said. "We must get some down his neck if we can. I don't feel the gentleman's heart, but it may not have stopped. He's warm enough." The footman obeyed, and Hardcastle was laid upon his back. Then Sir Walter directed Masters. "Hold his head up. It may be better for him." They waited, and, during the few moments before Caunter returned, Sir Walter spoke again. His mind wandered backward and seemed for the moment incapable of grasping the fact before him. "Almost the last thing the man said was to ask me why ghosts haunted the night rather than the day." "Poor fool--poor fool! He is answered," replied the priest. All attempts to restore the vanished life proved useless, and they carried Hardcastle downstairs presently. Henry Lennox was already gone for the doctor, and when, within an hour, Mannering joined them, he could only pronounce that the man was dead. No sign of life rewarded their protracted efforts to restore circulation. How he had come by his end, how death had broken into his frame, it was impossible to determine. Not an unusual sign marked the body. It revealed neither wound nor outward evidence of shock. The case seemed parallel with that of Thomas May. Death had struck the man like a flash of lightning and dropped him, where he stood, making his notes by the fireplace. Whereupon a complication faced Dr. Mannering. Mary came to him, where he spoke in the library with Sir Walter and Henry Lennox. She implored him to use his influence with her father-in-law; for they had forgotten Septimus May, while hastily deliberating as to what telegrams should be dispatched; but now they learned that Mr. May was in the Grey Boom and refused to leave it. "He is very excited," she said. "He is walking up and down, speaking aloud, quoting texts from Scripture, addressing the spirit that he believes to be listening to him. It would be grotesque were it not so horrible. He must be made to come away." "He is justified of his faith," declared Sir Walter. "I have withstood him until now, but I can do so no longer." "Indeed you must. He is playing with death," said Mannering.