And in the rooms of the Count at the Hôtel du Louvre a haggard, weary-faced man, almost worn out by the desperate excitement and the horrors of the last few weeks, was pacing up and down, unable to get away from the picture, that was ever before his eyes, of his friend's dead face, bloodstained and upturned from the snow, in the cold, grey morning light; unable to escape from that triumphant shout, 'Aha, Mr Secretary, _you're_ done for, at any rate,' which seemed as if it would ring for ever in his ears. 'I would give ten years of my life to undo that night's work. I shall never meet another man quite like him. I wish the brute had shot me,' he said to himself over and over again. CHAPTER I. FATHER AND SONS. The light was fading among the Derbyshire hills. The trees, now almost bare, were stirred by the fretful wind into what seemed like a passionate wail for their own lost loveliness, and on the wide bare stretch of moorland behind the house the strange weird cry of the plovers sounded like a dirge over the dead summer. The sharp, intermittent rain had beaten all the beauty out of the few late autumn flowers in the garden, and it was tender of the twilight to hasten to deepen into a darkness heavy enough to hide such a grey desolate picture. Inside Thornsett Edge another and a deeper darkness was falling. Old Richard Ferrier was sick unto death, and he alone of all the household knew it. He knew it, and he was not sorry. Yet he sighed. 'What is it, Richard? Can I get you anything?' A woman sitting behind his bed-curtain leaned forward to put the question--a faded woman, with grey curls and a face marked with deep care lines. It was his sister. 'Where are the boys?' 'Gone to Aspinshaw.' 'Both of them?' 'Yes; I asked Dick to take a note for me, and Roland said he'd go too.' The old man looked pleased. 'Did you want either of them?' she asked. 'I want them both when they come in.' 'Suppose you are asleep?' 'I shall not sleep until I have seen my sons.' 'Art thee better to-night, Richard?' she asked in a tone of tender solicitude, dropping back, as people so often do in moments of anxiety, into the soft sing-song accent that had once been habitual to her. 'Ay, I'm better, lass,' he said, returning the pressure of the hand she laid on his. 'Wilt have a light?' 'Not yet a-bit,' he answered. 'I like to lie so, and watch the day right out,' and he turned his face towards the square of grey sky framed by the window.