that disclosure.  There was something too horribly sinister in the character of a man who could be driven by ambition to make such a disclosure without regret, almost without hesitation.  He sacrificed and put to shame two gentle creatures at the beck of his implacable mania.  For the title he had forfeited tenderness, pity, decency—­all the human attributes—­with a brazen and unashamed face.  That man walked the earth alone.  By that act he set himself apart, defying all laws, all feeling—­everything.

“As I grew calmer I reflected that he could not defy me.  I could bring him tumbling from his lofty perch with a few words.  He might brazen out his attitude to the whole world, but not to me.  What was more, I could dictate to him—­could keep his mouth shut with a threat of reviving the past, of putting him on his trial for robbery and attempted murder thirty years before.

“I determined to do it—­to see him and reveal myself, and let him know that my own course of action would be decided by his.  If he chose to keep silent, he would have nothing to fear from me.

“I set out across the moors in the darkness.  It was raining, and I walked fast until Flint House loomed out of the blackness before me.  Then I paused to consider my course of action.  I was about to thwart a madman with a fixed idea, in a lonely house where he had in his service another man who could be depended on to make common cause against me when he knew the truth.  I was not afraid of Robert Turold, but I was of Thalassa.  I knew he was strong enough to hurl me through the window into the sea.  These elements in the situation called for caution.  I crept across the rocks towards the kitchen window.  As I did so I thought I saw a figure move among the rocks, and I ran quickly to the narrow lip of cliff which overhangs the sea at the back of the house.  There I stood for awhile, but could hear nothing but the sea raging far down beneath me.  I came to the conclusion that I had been mistaken.  Who was likely to be prowling round Flint House in a storm—­except myself?  I crept round the side of the house and looked through the kitchen window.

“Thalassa’s wife was in the kitchen, alone, with some playing cards spread out on the table in front of her.  But before long the door leading into the passage opened, and Thalassa came in.  He sat down, but after the lapse of a few minutes he rose from his chair and approached the window.  I shrank back into the shadow of a rock, watching him.  He stood looking out into the darkness for perhaps five minutes, then I saw him start, turn his head, and go out of the room.  I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.  A moment later I heard the murmur of voices in Robert Turold’s room upstairs.

“I went nearer to try and find out what had happened, but it was no use.  I could see a gleam of light in the study window, and could hear Robert Turold’s voice mingled with feminine tones, then—­silence, followed once more by the sound of an opening door.  From my place of concealment I saw two people going down the garden path—­Thalassa and a female figure.  They passed through the gate and vanished into the darkness of the moors.