And once more Maud Lochore’s hysterical mirth broke forth. The next instant it was suddenly hushed, and stillness fell again upon them. Priscilla rose from the table and came forward three steps impetuously, then halted, crimsoning to the roots of her hair, clasping and unclasping her hands. The Dishonourable Caroline looked at her daughter for a second with a pale, hard eye, then said in a repressive tone curiously at variance with the meaning of her words: “Thieves and housebreakers; we shall all be murdered in our beds! Let the men be called! Let search be made! Come, Priscilla.” She slowly waddled round to the girl’s side. “You shall remain in my room till the miscreants are captured. No doubt some of the gentlemen would stay within call.” “The gentlemen—where are they?” asked Lady Lochore. Then bending her brow darkly on Margery: “But why did you not call the men?” she asked. Margery pleated her apron. “Please, your ladyship,” she answered, in that sort of whisper that is more effectively heard than the natural voice, “it was no thief, whoever it was. He knocked at Mrs. Marvel’s window and the window was opened to him.” Lady Lochore gave a cry, a cry charged with a curious triumph as well as a stabbing remorse. Was her enemy delivered into her hands after all! Then that secret minute in the laboratory, that dire deed of impulse and opportunity, it had all been useless! For a brief black space she fought the thought in her heart. Well, who could tell, after all? Old Rickart was mad, mad as a hatter; and his theories, his famous discoveries might well prove but moonshine spun from his own crazy brain, while she, poor fool, was wearing out her short remnant of life with leaps and bounds, with senseless terrors, with weak repentances for a deed that perhaps had never been done! And if it were done? Up sprang her indomitable spirit. If it were done, it was well done! And, done or no, the hour of personal vengeance was vouchsafed her at the moment she had ceased to hope for it, least expected it. She would not be Maud Lochore, with the strength of death upon her, did she not use it to the full. Old Villars rose from his seat, his face working with varied emotions: anger, greedy curiosity, low vindictive pleasure. The Dishonourable Caroline packed her daughter’s arm firmly under her own. “It is time for bed,” she asserted. But Priscilla wrenched herself from her mother’s grasp and stamped her foot. “Where is Mr. Herrick?” she exclaimed, and burst into tears. Meanwhile Lady Lochore was speaking in broken sentences of ejaculation and command: “Shame, disgrace upon the House of Bindon! How dared the creature bring her wanton ways under our roof? But it was well, order should be put to it all.”