'You will wait here, will you not, till I come to you?' he said anxiously. 'And if you see anyone, you will not speak? you will remain absolutely silent, for the sake of your daughter, of poor Penelope?' He waited until she had again bent her head in assent, and then turned and left her, passing through the window on to the terrace, and so swiftly on, down through the wood, to the rough track leading to the shore. As he jumped down on to the beach, both feet sinking deeply through the soft dry sand above the water-line, he paused a moment, and, looking round him, felt suddenly reassured, ashamed of the unreasoning dread which had come over him when listening to Lady Wantley's strange, wildly-uttered words. The tide was only just beginning to turn, and the sea, in gentle mood, came and went to within a few feet of the Beach Room, of which the blank wall jutted out on to his right. The absolute peace and quietude which lay about him soothed Wantley's nerves, and he walked round, below the wide-open window, of which the sill was just on a level with his head, with steady feet. Then, taking up a stone, he knocked on the heavy wooden door, half expecting, wholly hoping, to hear in immediate response a deep-toned 'Come in.' But there came no such answer, and once more he knocked more loudly; he waited a few moments while vague fear again assailed him, and then, turning the handle, he walked into the Beach Room. At first he only saw that the chair, set before the broad table covered with papers, was without an occupant. But gradually, and not quite at once--or so it seemed to him looking back--he became aware that in the shadow of the table, stretched angularly across the floor, lay Sir George Downing, dead. Standing there, with the horror of what he saw growing on him, Wantley had not a moment of real doubt, of wild hope that this might not be death. Still, as he knelt down and brought himself to touch, to move, that which lay there, he suddenly became aware of a fact which would have laid any such doubt, for above Downing's right ear was a wound---- With a quick sigh Wantley, trembling, rose from his knees. In spite of himself, his mind vividly reconstituted the scene which must have taken place. First, the sudden appearance of the unexpected, unwelcome visitor; then the vision of Downing, with his old-fashioned courtesy, giving up the more comfortable chair, while he himself took that in which he, Wantley, had sat a short week ago; finally--the corner of the wide table only separating the two adversaries--after the exchange of a very few words, slow, decisive, on either side--the fatal shot. The revolver which Wantley remembered having seen pinning the map of Persia to the table, now lay as it had doubtless fallen from the delicate, steady hand which had believed itself divinely guided to accomplish its work of death.