"I had almost forgotten," she cried. "I am afraid I am but a poor plotter. The delight that you have accepted has put so much out of my poor brain." Then her eyes grew wide with awe and dread. "I told you that other lives than yours hang upon this matter. So--it is necessary for inviolable secrecy. Need you tell even your--father of your going? Need any one know? Your servants? Any one at all? It is a big thing to ask, but--life is very dear to us all, and---- No, no, what am I talking about? I must not beg. I must demand. For as sure as the sun rises to-morrow you will be silenced forever if word of this leaks out. We shall all be." The woman's manner was far more impressive than her words. But Ruxton treated the matter almost lightly. "Don't worry. I have given my promise to go. I am wilfully thrusting my neck into the noose waiting for it. I shall not take unnecessary chances. No one, not even my father, shall hear of this thing from me. So--good-bye until I return from--Germany." Vita's relief found expression in a grave sort of smile. "Thank you," she said quietly. "But--but you are not going to--Germany." CHAPTER VI THE OLD MILL COVE He had known the mill all his life; at least he believed he had. He had gazed upon that awesome black ruin, keeping watch and ward over the wicked little cove below it, like some sentinel on guard over a dangerous criminal, with wide, childish eyes, and a mind full of terrified speculation. He had known it later, when, with boyish bravado, he had flouted the horrific stories of a superstitious countryside, and explored its barren, ruined recesses. He had known it still later, when, with manhood's eyes opening to a dim appreciation of all those things which have gone before in the great effort of life, he had seen in it a picturesque example of the endless struggle which has gone on since the dawn of life. So he thought he knew it all. Now the limitations of his knowledge were forcing themselves upon him. Now he was realizing that there were secrets by the score in those every-day things which a lifetime of contact may never reveal. The strangeness of it all set him marvelling. The limitations of human understanding seemed extraordinarily narrow. He gazed down into the gaping cavity beneath his feet, and, by the dim rays of a lighted lantern, counted the worn stone steps until the darkness below swallowed up their outline. Ruxton Farlow straightened himself up and glanced about him at the bare stone walls, from the joints of which the cement had long since fallen. He looked up at the worm-eaten, oaken rafters which had stood the wear of centuries. The flooring which they supported had long since fallen into decay, and he only wondered how much longer those sturdy oaken beams would continue to support the colossal weight of the millstones now resting from their grinding labors.