Matt looked at him stupidly for a moment, and then gave a harsh, mirthless laugh. “Ezra—he’s—he’s—” “Yes?” “He’s blind.” “Blind?” Matt Harding could say no more, but sank down on to a chair and buried his head in his hands. For a week Ezra lay delirious, and it was even longer than that before any one could get his story from him. When it came, it was disjointed and almost incoherent. After he and Luke Wilden had walked about a mile, he told them, they suddenly saw in the distance something that looked like a red hot wire on the horizon. Dancing and swaying it drew nearer to them, and fascinated they watched to see what it could possibly be. Then suddenly, before they realized, it was upon them. It swooped down and coiled around Luke’s body, and carried him off into mid-air. As he tried to drag Luke from its clutches, the end of it, in curling around Luke still more firmly, struck him, and burnt and blinded him. He remembered no more; everything grew dim, and he fled down the long, straight road towards the village, instinct guiding him in place of his sight. Every one heard the story incredulously, and it duly appeared in the London newspapers, and tended to make the “Marshfielden Mystery” as it was called, still more complicated and unfathomable. Ezra recovered from the shock, but his eyesight was gone forever. “Destroyed by fire,” was the verdict of the eminent specialist who was called in to diagnose his case. The story of the “Light” grew daily more terrifying. School children declared they saw it from the windows of their class-rooms, and when closely questioned about it, declared it was “a golden streak of fire, as thin as wire, that came rushing through the sky like lightning.” Then men began to watch for it, but somehow it seemed to evade most of them, and for some time, solitary statements were all that could be obtained with reference to it. “What do you make of it, Alan?” asked Desmond one day, after it had been seen by three different witnesses at the same time and in the same direction. “I don’t know. Every one is not a liar, and at the same time every one cannot suffer from a like optical delusion. Every one who has seen this phenomenon agrees in every detail about its appearance.” “Yes, even the children,” supplemented Desmond. “Let’s go for a walk,” yawned his cousin. “I feel very tired to-day.” Mrs. Warren watched them going toward the gate with apprehension in her eyes, and just as they were about to pass through, she rushed to the door. “Be you agoin’ out? Oh, do’ant ’ee go—do’ant ’ee—not to-night! I be afeared—mortal afeared.” “Oh, we’ll take care of ourselves,” laughed Desmond. “Don’t you worry.” “But I’m afeared.” She shivered as she spoke—but the boys laughed as they walked toward the Corlot Woods, a favourite spot of theirs.