“Oh, but there were two curates,” cried Mary, with a certain gentle eagerness; “that was what made it so much funnier.”

The darkened glass doors of the house opened once more, and Inglewood appeared for an instant, making a sort of signal.  The American doctor bowed, the English doctor did not, but they both set out stolidly towards the house.  No one else moved, not even Michael hanging on the gate; but the back of his head and shoulders had still an indescribable indication that he was listening to every word.

“But don’t you understand, Mary,” cried Rosamund in despair; “don’t you know that awful things have happened even before our very eyes.  I should have thought you would have heard the revolver shots upstairs.”

“Yes, I heard the shots,” said Mary almost brightly; “but I was busy packing just then.  And Innocent had told me he was going to shoot at Dr. Warner; so it wasn’t worth while to come down.”

“Oh, I don’t understand what you mean,” cried Rosamund Hunt, stamping, “but you must and shall understand what I mean.  I don’t care how cruelly I put it, if only I can save you.  I mean that your Innocent Smith is the most awfully wicked man in the world.  He has sent bullets at lots of other men and gone off in cabs with lots of other women.  And he seems to have killed the women too, for nobody can find them.”

“He is really rather naughty sometimes,” said Mary Gray, laughing softly as she buttoned her old gray gloves.

“Oh, this is really mesmerism, or something,” said Rosamund, and burst into tears.

At the same moment the two black-clad doctors appeared out of the house with their great green-clad captive between them.  He made no resistance, but was still laughing in a groggy and half-witted style.  Arthur Inglewood followed in the rear, a dark and red study in the last shades of distress and shame.  In this black, funereal, and painfully realistic style the exit from Beacon House was made by a man whose entrance a day before had been effected by the happy leaping of a wall and the hilarious climbing of a tree.  No one moved of the groups in the garden except Mary Gray, who stepped forward quite naturally, calling out, “Are you ready, Innocent?  Our cab’s been waiting such a long time.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Warner firmly, “I must insist on asking this lady to stand aside.  We shall have trouble enough as it is, with the three of us in a cab.”

“But it is our cab,” persisted Mary.  “Why, there’s Innocent’s yellow bag on the top of it.”

“Stand aside,” repeated Warner roughly.  “And you, Mr. Moon, please be so obliging as to move a moment.  Come, come! the sooner this ugly business is over the better—­and how can we open the gate if you will keep leaning on it?”

Michael Moon looked at his long lean forefinger, and seemed to consider and reconsider this argument.  “Yes,” he said at last; “but how can I lean on this gate if you keep on opening it?”