I stood erect, gaping, suffocated, rising as from a long submersion.  Godfrey’s finger had slipped from the button of his torch, and we were in darkness; but suddenly a dim figure hurled itself past us, up the ladder.

With a low cry, Godfrey snatched at it, but his hand clutched only the empty air.  The next instant, the figure poised itself on the coping of the wall and then plunged forward out of sight.  I heard the crash of breaking branches, a scramble, a patter of feet, and all was still.

“It’s Swain!” said Godfrey, hoarsely; “and that’s a twelve-foot drop!  Why, the man’s mad!  Hand me that ladder, Lester!” he added, for he was already at the top of the wall.

I lifted it, as I had done once before that night, and saw Godfrey slide it over the wall.

“Come on!” he said.  “We must save him if we can!” and he, too, disappeared.

The next instant, I was scrambling desperately after him.  The lawyer-Tartarin had vanished!

CHAPTER VII

THE TRAGEDY

The wall was masked on the other side by a dense growth of shrubbery, and struggling through this, I found myself on the gravelled path where I had seen Marjorie Vaughan.  Before me, along this path, sped a shadow which I knew to be Godfrey, and I followed at top speed.  At the end of a moment, I caught a flash of light among the trees, and knew that we were nearing the house; but I saw no sign of Swain.

We came to the stretch of open lawn, crossed it, and, guided by the light, found ourselves at the end of a short avenue of trees.  At the other end, a stream of light poured from an open door, and against that light a running figure was silhouetted.  Even as I saw it, it bounded through the open door and vanished.

“It’s Swain!” gasped Godfrey; and then we, too, were at that open door.

For an instant, I thought the room was empty.  Then, from behind the table in the centre, a demoniac, blood-stained figure rose into view, holding in its arms a white-robed woman.  With a sort of nervous shock, I saw that the man was Swain, and the woman Marjorie Vaughan.  A thrill of fear ran through me as I saw how her head fell backwards against his shoulder, how her arms hung limp....

Without so much as a glance in our direction, he laid her gently on a couch, fell to his knees beside it, and began to chafe her wrists.

It was Godfrey who mastered himself first, and who stepped forward to Swain’s side.

“Is she dead?” he asked.

Swain shook his head impatiently, without looking up.

“How is she hurt?” Godfrey persisted, bending closer above the unconscious girl.

Swain shot him one red glance.

“She’s not hurt!” he said, hoarsely.  “She has fainted—­that’s all.  Go away.”

But Godfrey did not go away.  After one burning look at Swain’s lowering face, he bent again above the still figure on the couch, and touched his fingers to the temples.  What he saw or felt seemed to reassure him, for his voice was more composed when he spoke again.