"He declared he would disclose all he knew, take Vera from me by a plan that he explained, and that I saw I could not frustrate, and encompass the death of any persons to whom he thought I might have revealed the secret concerning him. Also he would tell the police the truth about the murder of his half-brother. He believed that you and I being such intimate friends, I had told you about him. Also he believed, for some reason, that my butler, James, knew something. He said he would kill you both. One of his accomplices was Judith, whom, a year ago, Gwen unsuspectingly engaged as maid. She, it seems, had kept Paulton posted in all that was happening in Houghton. I was driven to my wits' ends-- entirely desperate--though--you--you never suspected it." "But the photograph," I exclaimed, as I noticed a curious change suddenly come over him, "that photograph of Paulton--why was it at Houghton?" "We always kept it there, that Vera might never fail to identify Paulton, should she ever meet him. When we told Vera, in her seventeenth year, all that had happened years ago, we showed her that portrait for the first time. It was my idea to set it in the morning-room recently, so that my poor girl might never forget what the man looked like who had sworn to take her from me." "Could you not have removed the--that hidden body?" I exclaimed, anxious to get from him as many facts as possible, in the short time he had still to live. "What proof could he then have had--?" "Don't--ah! don't!" he interrupted. "There were reasons--of--of course, had it been possible, I--a water-pipe had burst in my house--it had caused the body to stain the ceiling--and--also there were--" and his thin, bony fingers clutched at the air in frantic gesture. His sentences were now disjointed, their meaning could not be followed. Now he was straining terribly his mouth gaped, his dry throat emitted a strange, rasping sound. I seized his wasted wrist. His pulse was almost still. Now his face was growing ashen, his eyes were staring into space--their intelligence was fading. The nurse entered, and glanced at me significantly. I sprang to my feet, and ran to the door. "Vera! Vera! Lady Thorold!" I called. "Come--ah! come quickly, he is dying... _dying_!" They rushed in from the corridor, where they had been awaiting me. In an access of despair, Lady Thorold threw herself upon her knees beside the bed, moaning aloud in a grief terrible to witness. My love stood beside her, gazing down upon her father--dazed--motionless. Grief had paralysed her senses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Suddenly, his thin, white lips moved, but no words were audible. Quickly Vera bent over him. The shrunken lips moved again. He was murmuring. For an instant, his filmy eyes showed a gleam of intelligence once again. "Dick--be good--to her--you--you will be good--_to her_!"