The body was borne over the grass and laid down by the churchyard wall. This culminating tragedy quelled the excitement of Jim and Edward and Palmer, who up till then had been dancing about, half intoxicated by the splendour and beauty of the flames, the fact that it was grandpapa’s church which was burning never even entering their minds. Now they remained silent and awestruck, and in this sudden passivity were discovered and seized upon by Doctor O’Neill, who brought them over to where the canon stood at the edge of the crowd. “I shouldn’t advise you to wait any longer, sir,” the doctor said. “It’s fortunate that Miss Annesley and the other children left before this last scene took place.” “Yes, I’ll go now,” the canon murmured in a half-dazed voice. “Poor Bradley! I suppose we may hope that he was at least spared the horror of realization?” “Yes, I think so. And I don’t think he suffered; the body is not burned....” The canon laid his hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Come, boys,” he said. “We may as well be getting home. Are you going to stay, doctor?” “No; I’m coming too.” The canon walked on, a grandson on either side of him; while Doctor O’Neill followed with Palmer. CHAPTER XXIII THE GLITTERING NET ‘O Rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm, That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.’ ――_Blake._ ‘And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams―― In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.’ ――_Edgar Poe._ If, as he walked home that night, Doctor O’Neill felt any misgivings concerning the part he and Palmer had played in relation to Mr. Bradley, and the possible effect their action might have had in bringing about the subsequent tragedy, he kept them to himself; yet undoubtedly he was relieved when, two days later, he learned that the boy’s reading of the case had been singularly accurate. A telegram to the address discovered by Palmer had brought over a friend of Mr. Bradley’s by the next boat, and the whole story was then revealed. It was an unpleasant story, in substance very much what Grif had listened to on that Sunday afternoon when he lay sick in bed, but the fact that it so justified himself and his young companion made it welcome to the doctor.