"It is the best for him, Mr. Charles," spoke Lennard, with some emotion. "Better, infinitely, than that of which he has been running the risk. When a man's life is marred as he has marred his, heaven must seem like a haven of refuge to him." "Has he any idea of his critical state?" "Yes; and, I feel sure, is quite reconciled to it. He remarked this morning how much he should like to see Blanche: meaning, I presume, Lady Level." "Ah, but there are difficulties in the way, Lennard. I will come to him myself, but not until evening. There's no immediate danger, you tell me, and I do not care to be seen entering your house during the day while he is in it. The big policeman might be on the watch, and ask me what I wanted there." Lennard left the room and I returned to my letters. The next I took up was a note from Blanche. Lord Level was not _yet_ back from Marshdale, she told me in it; he kept writing miserable scraps of notes in which he put her off with excuses from day to day, always assuring her he hoped to be up on the morrow. But she could see she was being played with; and the patience which, in obedience to me and Major Carlen, she had been exercising, was very nearly exhausted. She wrote this, she concluded by saying, to warn me that it was so. Truth to say, I did wonder what was keeping Level at Marshdale. He had been there more than a week now. CHAPTER IX. LAST DAYS. Tom Heriot lay on his sofa in his bedroom, the firelight flickering on his faded face. This was Monday, the third day since the attack spoken of by Lennard, and there had not been any return of it. His voice was stronger this evening; he seemed better altogether, and was jesting, as he loved to do. Leah had been to see him during the day, and he was recounting one or two of their passages-at-arms, with much glee. "Charley, old fellow, you look as solemn as a judge." Most likely I did. I sat on the other side the hearthrug, gazing as I listened to him; and I thought I saw in his face the grayness that frequently precedes death. "Did you know that that giant of the force, Wren, had his eye upon me, Charley?" "No! Why do you say so?" "Well, I think he has--some suspicion, at any rate. He parades before the house like a walking apparition. I look at him from behind the curtains in the other room. He paraded in like manner, you know, before that house in Southwark and the other one in Lambeth." "It may be only a coincidence, Tom. The police are moved about a good deal from beat to beat, I fancy." "Perhaps so," assented Tom carelessly. "If he came in and took me, I don't think he could do much with me now. He accosted Purfleet to-day." "Accosted Purfleet!" Tom nodded. "After his morning visit to me, he went dashing out of the street-door in his usual quick way, and dashed against Wren. One might think a regiment of soldiers were always waiting to have their legs and arms cut off, and that Purfleet had to do it, by the way he rushes about," concluded Tom.