“Do you mean to say,” answered Travers, face to face with the calm man, “do you mean to tell us that the—that the chap’s corpse, you know, was in the house last night while you and Janet were entertaining us? If you are the man you are, surely no woman at any rate could have stood that.” “Ah, you don’t know her,” smiled Fair. “To save me—yes, to please me even, that woman would do anything—bear anything.” “And she jolly well ought to,” put in Allyne, slapping Fair’s back, and then with a nervous look about the room: “I say, what did you do with the—with that infernal thing, you know?” “With the body?” asked Fair, with entire freedom from excitement. “It is here yet.” “Here?” cried Allyne angrily and sick with perplexity. “In the house now?” asked Travers, scowling but not believing. “Certainly,” replied Fair quietly. “What could I have done with it last night? You all came in within a few minutes of the deed. Yes, it is in the house—it is in this room now.” “The devil you say!” exclaimed Allyne, facing about as if he feared that the dreadful thing was back of him somewhere. “Rather a gruesome thing to joke about, isn’t it?” asked Travers sadly, and still utterly unable to believe what he heard. “Horrible—but true,” answered Fair, with disconcerting calmness as he walked slowly over toward the chest by the fireplace, while Allyne and Travers watched him breathlessly. “It is here.” He seemed to take an eternity to do whatever it was that he intended to do, but finally as he stood over the chest he said, looking from one to the other: “If a man ever had a more terrible guest under his roof than mine, I pity him. Look!” As he said this he suddenly stooped and raised the lid of the chest. The two now thoroughly horrified men were standing on either side of him. They all peered, shuddering, into the chest. _It was empty._ “Gone?” moaned Fair, for the first time betraying uncontrolled horror. “That settles it,” shouted Travers, delirious with joy. “You see, you have been dreaming this whole cursed nightmare.” Meanwhile Allyne was running about the room, swinging a chair over his head and shouting like a madman. Coming back to Fair he sang out with hysterical laughter: “Rest and quiet—rest—and qui—et, sir—that’s what we need. Ice on the head, hot water at the feet—and a month at sea. May I have the pleasure?” Before Fair could stop him he had waltzed him around the room. At last Fair broke away from him, and holding his hands to his splitting head, he brought them back to a full realization of the awful truth by the expression on his face. “Hush!” he cried to Allyne. “For God’s sake, Allyne, stop it. I swear on my honor that I put it into this chest. It has been discovered by somebody and removed today. I sat up all night in this room, so that it must have been taken away today. Come. That’s the end. I might as well surrender without delay.”