"I shall drive from the Ferry to Seacliff. It is only six miles by the road, and I can be there before the boat. "There go my wife and five thousand pounds of--of the money I laid my hands on in an accursed hour. How strange it is that a few minutes ago when I thought of my position I never thought of that! What a whimsical thing chance is! There are Miss Midharst's five thousand pounds helping to carry my wife from Daneford to Seacliff; and here am I, who owe a hundred times that sum, and with no way out of the thing except I should chance to be at liberty to marry within a few months. "Ah, well, let me try and think of something that's probable. Trying to square the circle is an elegant and harmless and profitable way of spending one's time; it pays much better than trying to see the way out of my mess. Possibly in a short time I may go mad. That would be a capital way out of it, particularly if my madness took the form of going over that bedside scene for ever. Bah! I am giddy already. I _must_ think of something else. Let me get back. That drive to Seacliff will freshen me. Anyway I ought to be very well satisfied with the substantial events of this evening." He turned around and began slowly retracing his steps. As he did so, he raised his eyes to the Castle. Already the walls of the pile were steeped in the shadows of night. But the Witch's Tower--the Tower of Silence--had just caught the fierce gleam of light from the river. He paused, looked up, and thought: "How simple the people were long ago! They had no idea of cause and effect. They saw that this tower blazed red after all the rest of the building was laid in shadow. But the poor idiots never thought of the light on the river. I can hardly believe it. An evening like this, when there wasn't a cloud in the heavens, someone must have noticed that the light on the tower first appeared when the sun caught the river and remained steady until the sun had gone altogether. It is incredible that people were ever such fools." He stopped. "I will wait until it fades," he thought, by way of honouring his scorn for the past. Presently and quickly the red glow faded from the tower. "Now," he cried, "the sun is set, and no witchcraft can rekindle that glow for four-and-twenty----What! The light again! Am I mad already?" Once more, beyond all doubt, the blood-red glare burnt on the summit of the Tower of Silence. Grey turned quickly round, and looked in surprise and horror west. He shaded his eyes with his hands. He rushed forward a few paces, shaded his eyes again and looked. He swung himself into the branches of a tree, climbed up, and having reached the highest branches that would sustain his weight, glared into the west, into the track of crimson fire that shot the red shaft at the Tower. Then he descended heavily, drowsily, as though half asleep. When on the ground he threw himself on his face, and muttered in a thick voice: