been any one to witness the process, they would have seen that it was effected with extraordinary care. For instance, he did not touch the object, he turned it out upon the table, and when he moved it at all it was with a bit of stick which he took from the remains of what had been used to make the fire with. Yet it was a harmless looking thing enough—a small, shining disk not more than an inch and a half in diameter, and it had five points like those of a star.

What an extraordinary thing was that which had happened, he said to himself. The omen of the door handle and the open door; and involuntarily now he glanced at the latter. But it was fast shut, and the handle at its usual angle. It had been the means of saving the stranger’s life—for what a very short time, as events had proved—and he remembered how he had marvelled that contrary to all report the manifestation had been effected in bringing any good to anybody. Well the “good” had not been effectual enough to last, so that far the grimness of the tradition did not belie itself. It was indeed extraordinary, and here in the broad daylight he could afford to contemplate it from a purely speculative point of view. Yet as he looked more and more at the little disk a good deal of an uneasy fascination was upon him, and well it might be—none knew this better than himself.

Then he did a strange thing. He went out of the room, returning immediately wearing a thick pair of fur-lined gloves. He took up the trinket, even then holding it gingerly. He looked round for something to wrap it in, then thought better of it. He rose, and carried the thing out, holding it behind him, and ascended again to the sluice. There was a small hole in the ice, where the overflow ran out over an iron door. That would do. No, it would not. He paused—just in time, as he realised he had been on the point of making a most fatal mistake.

He looked around, not furtively, not pointedly, just casually. Not a soul was in sight, but he knew, none better, that it does not follow that because you cannot see a soul therefore not a soul can see you. A cloud of blue titmice was twittering in a leafless alder, glancing from twig to twig. Overhead a little red kestrel was hovering against the cloudless blue of the dazzling winter sky, and two squirrels gambolled and chirked among the feathering boughs of a dark yew tree which still had a few berries left. Blackbirds clucked and flickered over the ice surface. All Nature was joyous and at peace this bracing, invigorating winter morning, and within the room down yonder the dead man lay.

Mervyn turned to regain the house. The little black 

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