Of a sudden the dog Achilles starts barking. A short, sharp, startled bark--once, twice--and is silent. The girl lays the dead hand gently down, not dropping it, but replacing it where it first lay. She does not speak for a moment--cannot, perhaps. Then it comes with a cry, neither of pain nor joy--mere tension. "Oh, Dr. Merridew ... the fingers closed ... They closed on mine ... the fingers _closed_.... I know it. I know it ... The fingers _closed_!..." She says it again and again as though in terror that her word might be doubted. He sees as she turns to him that all her pride of self-control has given way. She is fighting against an outburst of tears, and her breath comes and goes at will, or at the will of some power that drives it. Sir Coupland may be contemplating speech--something it is correct to say, something the cooler judgment will endorse--but whatever it is he keeps it to himself. He is not one of those cheap sages that has _hysteria_ on his tongue's tip to account for everything. It _may_ be that; but it may be ... Well--he has seen some odd cases in his time. So, without speaking to the agitated young lady, he simply calls his colleague back; and, after a word or two aside with him, says to her:--"You had better leave him to us. Go now." It gives her confidence that he does not soothe or cajole, but speaks as he would to a man. She goes, and as she walks across to the Keeper's Lodge makes a little peace for her heart out of small material. Sir Coupland said "him" this time--look you!--not "it" as before. The daughter finds the mother, five minutes later, trying a well-meant word to the old keeper; to put a little heart in him, if possible. It was no fault of his; he only carried out his orders, and so on. Gwen is silent about her experience; she will not raise false hopes. Besides, she is only half grieved for the old chap--has only a languid sympathy in her heart for him who, tampering with implements of Death, becomes Cain unawares. If she is right, he will know in time. Meanwhile it will be a lesson to him to avoid triggers, and will thus minimise the exigencies of Hell. Also, she has recovered her self-command; and will not show, even to her mother, how keen her interest has been in this man in the balance betwixt life and death.