The troubled house had fallen asleep at last. They were all used to the swooping horrors; they could recall the black times spread out over the weary years; they could vividly recollect how one trouble after another had happened. And it had been an eventful day. For the last few hours they had lived a fresh tragedy. True, the tragedy itself had been averted, but for some time there had been the agony of the real thing. The Ravenspurs, exhausted by the flood of emotion, had been glad of rest. They were presumably asleep now, all but Ralph. Long after deep silence had fallen on the house he sat alone in the darkness. The glow of his pipe just touched his inscrutable features and a faint halo of light played about his grizzled head. A mouse nibbling behind the panels sounded clear as the crack of a pistol shot. The big stable clock boomed two. Ralph laid aside his pipe and crept to the door. He opened it silently and passed out into the corridor. A cat would not have made less noise. Yet he moved swiftly and confidently, as one who has eyes to see familiar ground. He came at length to the room where Mrs. May was lying. She had been made fairly comfortable. Her dress had been loosened at the throat, but she still wore the clothes in which she had been dressed at the time of her accident. Later she would perhaps find it difficult to account for masquerading in the castle in that strange guise. That she would have some ingenious plea to put forward Ralph felt certain. But the dress was another matter. Ralph grinned to himself as he thought of it. There was a light in the room. He could tell that by the saffron glow that touched lightly on his sightless eyeballs. He knew the disposition of the room as well as if he could see it. He felt his way across until he came to the bed on which the woman lay. His hand touched her throat--a gentle touch--yet his fingers crooked and a murderous desire blossomed like a rose in his heart. Nobody was about and nobody would know. Who could connect the poor blind man with the deed? Why not end her life now? "Far better," Ralph muttered. "It would have been no crime to shoot her like a dog. Yet fancy hanging for such a creature as that!" The grim humor of the suggestion restored Ralph to himself. His relaxed fingers just touched the cold throat and face. He could hear the sound of regular breathing. From a tiny phial he took two or three drops of some dark cordial and brushed them over the woman's rigid lips. She stirred faintly. "Just as well to hasten events," he muttered. "One cannot afford to play with the thing." He replaced the bottle in his pocket. He drew himself up listening. Other ears could not have heard a sound. Ralph could plainly hear footsteps. But how near they were he could not tell. His brows contracted with annoyance. "So soon," he muttered. "I did not expect this."