"Why did you do such a horrible thing?" wailed Bess. "Because I was mad for the time being," said Stephen gloomily, "I will tell you all if you are strong enough to hear it." "After what I know, I am strong enough to hear anything. Oh! To think that you should have behaved in so barbarous a manner." Stephen winced. "It was barbarous I confess," said he, "but I was mad for the time being. After all you must not be too hard on me. I did not kill my respected uncle," he sneered. Bess shivered. She had never before seen this side of Stephen's character, and the new experience was unpleasant. It even stirred her into unconsidered indignation. "Since you went up that tower with a revolver, you must have intended to kill the man," she said. "Perhaps I did, perhaps I did not," he answered in a most brazen manner, "but the plain truth is that I wanted to frighten him. "And did you think a revolver would frighten a man who had faced death fifty and a hundred times?" said Bess with scorn. She recalled to her memory several episodes Carr had told her of his American doings; she well knew the dare-devilry latent in the man. "Carr was old, and had lost his nerve. I counted upon that. I never intended to kill him. When I went up the tower the work had been done for me already." "And who did it?" "I do not know," said Stephen earnestly, "upon my soul Bess I do not know--the man was dead when I saw him. It was sheer rage that made me fire those three shots. The brute that is in me, as it is in every man, came to the surface. But of the real murderer I saw no trace. I did not see Frisco whom I take to be the man." "It was not Frisco," flashed out Bess, "However," she continued sick at heart, "you had better tell me how it came about." "Partly through my love for Ida, partly through my mother," said Marsh-Carr gloomily. "It came to my mother's ears that the Colonel intended to disinherit me. I suppose Frisco got the upper hand and induced him to alter his will--that is if he did alter it which I doubt." "Of course he did not Stephen. If he had left the money to anyone else you would not be here." "I am not so sure about that," replied the young man savagely. "Frisco might have taken the second will from the corpse. At all events I know that Frith and Frith drafted no new will. If it was drawn the Colonel must have drawn it himself. However Frisco let out in one of his drunken fits at Beorminster that Carr intended to cut me off. My mother heard the news and came home in a frenzy of rage. It was for that reason she called on Carr on the afternoon you know of. The twenty-fourth was it not? She intended to argue him into a better frame of mind. He only laughed at her and said he would leave his money as pleased him. She told me the next day. But Carr was dead then." "What made you decide to frighten him?"