Carthew was feeling anything but fit to cope with all the cares and responsibilities which had devolved upon him again, under circumstances so shocking, no less suddenly than he had been relieved of them all—along with that place in life to which they pertained—by the man now lying dead on the floor before him. As he watched the Duchess of Dawn leading Sallie gently out of the banquet-hall, he would have given a very great deal to have been free to follow them, for Sallie had looked back at him out of tear-dimmed eyes as she went, with an expression he could not quite understand. And, now that she too knew the very worst there was to be told, he was desperately anxious to find out how she was going to deal with him, under such changed conditions.

But there were matters even more urgent to be disposed of, for her sake too, before he could set himself right with her. He pulled himself together, with a great effort.

It was clear that he must not permit Captain Dove and his two confederates to decamp. He had heard enough already to justify him in taking the law into his own hands for the nonce and detaining them there. It was equally clear that he must not delay for a moment in finding out as much more as he might from Farish M\'Kissock, who looked as if he could scarcely live for another hour.

He whispered to Herries to take such steps as would ensure that no one whosoever should be allowed to leave the castle, and to shut the three accomplices up together in the North Keep if that could be done quietly, without any scandal. Then, having got rid of Captain Dove and the other two, he was left in the banquet-hall with only the Marquis of Ingoldsby, in a state of apparent coma, old Janet M\'Kissock, grief-stricken to the very verge of endurance, and her unfortunate brother, still standing motionless, with bent head and hands clasped, staring down at the dead man—so near in semblance and yet so far beyond reach of his animosity.

The grey-haired housekeeper was pleading with Farish M\'Kissock to come away, but he resisted all her attempts to get him to leave that spot.

"Let me bide where I am," he answered her querulously. "In a very little, Janet, I\'ll be away off after his foolish lordship there, that thinks he has slipped through my feckless fingers again—as he did once before. But I\'ll soon be on his track again, for they\'ll have to streek me on the same stretching-board that serves him. Let me bide beside him till then."

Carthew looked anxiously across at the Marquis of Ingoldsby. There was nobody who might better serve as a witness to whatever M\'Kissock might still be induced to tell concerning that nightmare past in which the poor corpse on the floor and the girl who had gone away weeping and he himself had all been involved.

"There\'s somethin\' doosid fishy about all these goin\'s-on," Lord Ingoldsby commented with a good deal more candour than tact, when Carthew made that suggestion to him. "And I\'m for Lady Josceline, right through from start to finish. I don\'t believe a word of that goat-bearded fellow\'s yarn. He\'s been and caught sunstroke somewhere—that\'s what\'s the matter with him, eh? He\'s mad as a hatter.

"But, all the same, I\'m willin\' to listen to anything more he has to say—and take a mental note of it, so to speak. I want to know who\'s who and what\'s what myself."

Carthew turned to Farish M\'Kissock then, and the latter looked him over with a frown as of dim remembrance which gradually changed to a scowl of hate.

"And so," said the ex-Emir in a rancorous voice, "you have come to your own at last amid it all. Is there no end to your ill race? My men told me that you were safely buried and dead—they showed me the mound that they said covered you. How—"

"Come away from here," said Carthew steadily, "and I\'ll tell you how I escaped." And Farish M\'Kissock, leaning heavily on his sister\'s shoulder, at last allowed her to lead him to her own room.

Carthew told him then, in few words, while Lord Ingoldsby, listening gloomily, scowled over it, the story of Sallie\'s daring and his own escape from death, on the African coast.

The ex-Emir\'s heavy eyes lighted up a little.

"Ay," said Farish M\'Kissock, musingly. "And so it was—her—that helped you past your dug grave! I knew her for a mettlesome filly the first time I ever clapped eyes on her. And now—to think that but for you and me she\'d be cosily settled, knowing nothing, in this old nest—that should by rights have been my wife\'s and mine! It\'s a damned upside-down world this, my fine doctor! But—you\'ll make it up to her, maybe, in another way?"

He was gazing at Carthew with something of his old imperious, indomitable spirit. "You owe—her—your very coronet, my new Lord Jura," said he.

"I\'ll pay all I owe," said Carthew, to humour him, "if she\'ll take any payment from me." And at that the Marquis of Ingoldsby scowled still more blackly.

The ex-Emir made a gruesome effort to laugh sardonically.

"She\'ll take it," said he, "if you\'re man enough, if you\'re man enough to master her," said he and sank back on his couch.

"And now—about Captain Dove," Carthew suggested as he brought paper and ink to the table from the desk in one corner. And the dying man sat up again as if spurred to a final effort.

He looked round at his stricken sister. "Leave us for a little, Janet, woman," said he in a more kindly tone. "There is that to be told now which you would like ill to hear, and his lordship will call you back when I\'m through with it."

Carthew nodded hastily to the old housekeeper. "We\'ll be as quick as we can," he promised: "and you can stay within call."

She went, however unwillingly, and then her brother began the story of all his dealings with Captain Dove, speaking slowly, in a low voice, husbanding his strength, while Carthew wrote down every word of it.

In his eagerness to ensure the downfall of his surviving enemy, he had no hesitation in incriminating himself. Lord Ingoldsby listened as if stricken dumb and Carthew had hard work to contain himself as he heard, among other infamies, of the bargain the ex............