intended to investigate for myself. That house was, I felt certain, a house of mystery.

I had turned towards the door, but in an instant he had reached it and stood facing me with his back to it resolutely, saying--"You will go to her on one condition--the condition I have already explained."
"That I take her life seriously, and give a certificate of death from natural causes," I said. "No, Mr Wynd, I am no murderer."
"Not if we add to the sum an extra five thousand?"
"I will not harm her for an extra fifty thousand. Let me pass!" I cried with fierce resolution."
"When you have promised to accede to my request."
"I will never promise that."
"Then you will not enter her room again."

Almost as the words left his lips there was a low tap at the door, and it opened, disclosing Davies, who announced--"The Major, sir."
"Show him in." 

The visitor, who entered jauntily with his silk hat still set at a slight angle on his head, was the well-groomed man who had led my bride up the aisle of the church. I judged him to be about forty-five, dark-complexioned, good-looking, but foppish in appearance, carrying his monocle with ease acquired by long practice.
"Well, Wynd," he said, greeting his friend, cheerily, "all serene?"
"Entirely," answered the other. And then, turning to me, introduced the newcomer as "Major Tattersett."
"This, Major, is Dr Colkirk, my new son-in-law," he explained. "Permit me to present him."
"Congratulate you, my dear sir," he responded laughing good-humouredly, while the Tempter remarked--"The Major is, of course, fully aware of the circumstances of your marriage. He is our nearest friend."
"Marriage rather unconventional, eh?" the other remarked to me. "Poor Beryl! It is a thousand pities that she has been struck down like that. Six months ago down at Wyndhurst she was the very soul of the house-parties--and here to-day she is dying."
"Extremely sad," I remarked. "As a medical man I see too vividly the uncertainty of human life."
"How is she now?" inquired the Major of her father. "The same, alas!" answered the Tempter with well-assumed sorrow. "She will, we fear, not live till midnight."
"Poor girl! Poor girl!" the new-comer ejaculated with a sigh, while the Tempter, excusing himself for an instant, left the room.

I would have risen and followed, but the Major, addressing me confidentially, said--"This is a strange whim of my old friend's, marrying his daughter in this manner. There seems no motive for it, as far as I can gather."
"No, none," I responded. "Mr Wynd has struck me as being somewhat eccentric."
"He's a very good fellow--an 

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