“Be careful with that revolver,” he exclaims hastily; “it is loaded!”

“All right, old fellow, I know it,” returns Ringwood.  “Look here, doctor, if he held it so, how could he make a wound here?”

“Why not?  Sir Adrian, take the revolver for a moment, will you?” says the surgeon, anxious to demonstrate his theory beyond the possibility of doubt.  “I want to convince Ringwood.  Now stand so, and hold the weapon so”—­placing it with the muzzle presented in a rather awkward position almost over his heart.

“I thought fellows always put the muzzles of their revolvers in their mouths and blew their brains out when they committed suicide,” Ringwood remarks lightly.

“This fellow evidently did not,” says the surgeon calmly.  “Now, Sir Adrian, you see, by holding it thus, you could quite easily blow yourself to—­”

Before he can finish the sentence, there is a sudden confusion of bodies, a jostling as it were, for Arthur Dynecourt, who had been looking on attentively with one foot on a footstool close to Sir Adrian’s elbow, had slipped from the stool at this inopportune moment, and had fallen heavily against his cousin.

There is a shout from somebody, and then a silence.  The revolver in the scuffle had gone off!  Through the house the sharp crack of a bullet rings loudly, rousing many from their slumbers.

Lights can be seen in the passages; terrified faces peep out from half-opened doors.  Dora Talbot, coming into the corridor in a pale pink cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan’s-down, in which she looks the very personification of innocence and youth, screams loudly, and demands hysterically to be informed as to the cause of the unusual noise.

The servants have rushed from their quarters in alarm.  Ethel Villiers, with a pale scared face, runs to Florence Delmaine’s room, and throws her arms round that young lady as she comes out, pale but composed, to ask in a clear tone what has happened.

As nobody knows, and as Florence in her heart is more frightened than she cares to confess, being aware through Adrian that some of the men are still up in the smoking-room, and fearing that a quarrel had arisen among them, she proposes that they should go to the smoking-room in a body and make inquiries.

Old Lady FitzAlmont, with Lady Gertrude sobbing on her arm, seconds this proposal, and, being a veteran of much distinction, takes the lead.  Those following close behind, are glad of this, and hopeful because of it, her appearance being calculated to rout any enemy.  The awful character of her dressing-gown and the severity of the nightcap that crowns her martial head would strike terror to the hearts of any midnight marauders.  They all move off in a body, and, guided unconsciously by Florence, approach the smoking-room.

Voices loud in conversation can be heard as they draw near; the door is slightly ajar.  Florence drawing back as they come quite up to it, the old lady waves her aside, and advances boldly to the front.  Flinging wide open the door, she bursts upon the astonished company within.