‘Dinah, you must hear me. Why, out of all the love you held and hold for me, can you condemn? When I left you I fell mad; for the year I have been mad, and only yesterday did they set me loose. See, I have brought you all the diamonds; to-morrow you will be Dame Inowslad.’ And he laid the dead thing on a table, and caught the mother to his bosom. Her figure was shaken with sobs. ‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘it has been hard; but my trial has brought the true guerdon of happiness. Only once have I missed seeing the place where you promised to meet me--the place where you said you loved me; and that was on the night of my lonely travailing.’ Outside the horses plunged and snorted: a shrunken postillion swaying at the neck of the off-leader. In the hollows of the road lay sheets of mist, and the moonlight turned them into floods. A long train of startled owls left the hollow sycamores and passed hooting ... hooting ... down the glade. ‘Let us go,’ Sir Jake said; ‘by morning light we shall be in sight of Cammere, where Heaven grant us a happy time;--a year of joy for each week of pain. Do not wait to dress; rich robes and linen are inside the coach; I have brought many of my mother’s gowns.’ Dinah extricated herself from his embrace, and went to find her cloak. During her absence a strange and terrible look came into Inowslad’s face and he smote his forehead. He smiled at her re-appearing. ‘Dinah,’ he said, looking downwards, so that she might not see his eyes, ‘Dinah, I am so happy that I can scarce see. Lead me from the house.’ He took up the dead little one in his right arm, and carried it as believers carry relics. The outer door closed softly; they descended the mossgrown steps, and entered the coach. The horses leaped forward, half drowning the sound of a chuckle. A glint of the moon pierced the coach windows, and I saw a brown hand, convulsed and violent, griping a long white throat. EXCERPTS FROM WITHERTON’S JOURNAL: ALSO A LETTER OF CRYSTALLA’S The principal events of Pliny Witherton’s life are written at length in Goodwin’s _Records of English Painters_, a volume published by Dodsley in 1752. He is described therein as one whose genius went beyond his achievement; who suffered ecstatic pain in conception, yet brought forth little worthy of remembrance. Personally he was small and ill-formed: of that sallow countenance and red skein-like hair wherewith tradition has gifted Judas Iscariot. His gait was felinely nimble, his voice harsh. Notwithstanding his great defects, he was a favourite with women.