Suddenly my fingers, wildly clutching at nothing, came in contact with a heavy iron paperweight and closed over it. With a last effort I struck with all my force at my cousin's head. For aught I know, I may have struck more than once, but in the very act consciousness left me. "When I regained my senses, a quarter of an hour later, I was lying on the floor. A little way off lay the body of my cousin--stone dead. Hardly had I time to realise the horror of the situation before I heard the voices of two men talking in the lane outside. With that, the instinct of self-preservation came back in full force. As in a flash, I seemed to see how hardly it would fare with me should I chance to be found there. After picking up the papers which had cost me so dearly, I put out the gas, and then a sudden impulse, for which I am unable to account, decided me to--to---- But you know already what befell afterwards." "And the paperweight--what became of that?" demanded Robert Melray after a short silence. "I dropped it into the pocket of my coat and took it upstairs with me. Later on I hid it away in the lumber-room where I myself was in hiding at the time." "You had better leave me now," said Robert presently. "I will see you again later in the day. I must have time to think over what you have told me and to decide upon some course of action which----" But at this juncture there came a tap at the door, which was followed by the intrusion of Mr. Cray's spectacled head. "I beg your pardon, sir," said the chief clerk, "but Mr. Bayliss has been waiting some time, and he says that if you can't see him at once, he will call again to-morrow, or next day." Now, Mr. Bayliss was the person with whom Robert was in negotiation for the purchase of the business of Melray Brothers. "I will see him now--at once," was his reply. Richard Dyson stepped quietly out without a word more, as Robert went forward into the outer office to greet his visitor. At the same moment Denia slipped out of her hiding-place, and out of the room by the other door, unseen and unheard by anyone. CHAPTER XXII. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Richard Dyson went out to luncheon at his usual time, but failed to return. About five o'clock Mr. Melray asked for him, but no one knew what had become of him, nor did any authentic tidings of him come to hand till the following day. It was then discovered that he and Miss Glyn had gone off together, after having been married at an early hour by special license. Neither of them was ever seen in Merehampton again. It may be that Robert Melray was not ill-pleased to have the hard problem which circumstances would otherwise have compelled him to solve taken out of his hands and done with, as far as he was concerned, for ever.