least to blame. Anybody with a spark of decent feeling must have done what I did. If he broke his head, poor brute, that wasn't my fault; it's what you might call the act of God. I'm not going to prison, if I can help it, for a crime I haven't committed. In the meantime, I want my chisel."

"Well, it's not--where you suggest," said Denis with an effort, "for I remember seeing it after he fell."

"You did? Then it must be here somewhere!"

But it was not.

"What the devil can have come to it?" said Gardiner, biting his mustache, and betraying his agitation by his language; for he did not usually swear.

"Mrs. Trent was kneelin' over that side."

"What, do you think she's got it up her sleeve? But in that case why didn't she bring it out and denounce me? Here, you'd better have a peg, Denis, you look as though you wanted one. What the deuce should she carry it away with her for?"

"I don't know; but it struck me she had something on the tip of her tongue to say just before she collapsed. Perhaps she meant to produce it, and then felt too sick."

There was a short silence. Denis sipped the whisky which his friend had forced on him. It was not so much Trent's death which had upset him, as Gardiner's failure, and the part which it forced him to play. He hated any contact with deception.

"Well, this is a sweet prospect," said Gardiner, with another short laugh. "Mrs. Trent, and you--let's hope the coroner won't ask awkward questions! Come on out now; it's no use hunting for a thing that isn't there. I'll lock up the room and summon the minions of the law."

"I wish you'd own up."

"Oh, confound you for a prig, Denis! I can't go back on what I've said, can I? It might perhaps have been better if I'd done it at first, but I'm committed to it now. I must just go on and trust to luck. It was you began it; don't you forget that!"

CHAPTER III

NOCTURNE
I saw a dream that made me afraid, and the thoughts of my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. DANIEL.

Under the canopy of stars Harry Gardiner lay awake thinking of his sins; among which he did not, then or later, include any responsibility for the death of Trent. It was a shocking business, 

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