The strong hollow voice boomed from beyond the circle of stones, and gaunt Doctor Kyle stalked into the crimson light. His powerful hand gripped a hunting-rifle. Gray smoke was curling from its muzzle. He stood for a moment between two red-lit pillars, and in the scarlet flickering his head looked more than ever like a skull. He nodded to my voiceless question. "Yes," he said, "I shot your brother, Clay--I should have killed him the day he was born. You were unarmed; he was getting the better of you. Sarah," he explained, "told us where you had come.--Valyne! is she all right?" I turned for a moment to look at her motionless body. It wavered and faded with my tears, and my voice was husky when I said: "She isn't harmed, Doctor. And you needn't fear that I shall wreck her life, or that there shall be born another of my blood. For I'm going--after my brother." The sunken eyes that flamed from that gaunt, skeletal head were abruptly crimson in the firelight. Through thin lips came the ghastly rasp: "Perhaps--perhaps that is best." And I strode on, away from the twin red fires of the blood-stained altar, through the tall silent stones, toward the dark forest waiting to drink my blood. I was reaching again for the cold, comforting grip of the automatic. Its swift flame would burn all the horror and the madness from my brain. When I was dead, I thought with dim gratitude, I should be at last like other men.... "Clay----" It was Valyne's voice, faint, but urgent, frantic. But I dared not stop, lest my love and her tenderness should sweep me into the black pit of a crime too hideous to name. I strode on, into the shadows that would hide and comfort me for ever. "Clay!" It was a terrified gasp. "Come back to me. Remember your promise----" But rasping against my brain was Doctor Kyle's fearful warning: "Passion will wake your slumbering demon, Clay. You must walk with care, my son, or you will lose all humanity, in a hideous reversion. If you married, you might become as monstrous as your brother." I heard his hollow tones addressing Valyne: "Peace, my child. God has ordered it. I will care for you----" I hastened on, lest my purpose fail too soon.... The faint, desperate appeal came again: "Clay--listen! It's all a trick. A ghastly hoax! _Listen!_" A hoax! That word brought me back at a run. My outraged sanity had fought grimly against belief. But there had seemed no escape. What could have been the motive for so frightful a deception? "My child!" Amazement boomed in the voice of Doctor Kyle. "What are you saying?" "Listen!" repeated Valyne. "To that!" She struggled to sit up, pointing at the dead monster. Wonderingly, I moved toward it, stooped. And abruptly, in the still, frosty air, I heard a familiar sound: the jangling tick of a cheap watch. "It's Jud!" her faint voice said. "I heard his watch, when he was carrying me."