The blinds were all down at Longdean Grange, a new desolation seemed to be added to the gloom of the place. Out in the village it had by some means become known that there was somebody dead in the house, either madam herself or one of those beautiful young ladies whom nobody had ever seen. Children loitering about the great lodge-gates regarded Williams with respectful awe and Dr. Walker with curiosity. The doctor was the link connecting the Grange with the outside world.

To add to the gloom of it all the bell over the stables clanged mournfully. The noise made Walker quite nervous as he walked up the drive by Williams's side. Not for a pension would he have dared approach the house alone. Williams, in the seediest and most dilapidated rusty black, had a face of deepest melancholy.

"But why that confound—Why do they ring that bell?" Walker asked, irritably.

"Madam ordered it, sir," Williams replied. "She's queerer than ever, is mistress. She don't say much, but Miss Christiana's death is a great shock to her. She ordered the bell to be tolled, and she carried on awful when Miss Enid tried to stop it."

Walker murmured vaguely something doubtless representing sympathy.

"And my other patient, Williams?" he asked. "How is he getting along? Really, you ought to keep those dogs under better control. It's a dreadful business altogether. Fancy a man of Mr. Henson's high character and gentle disposition being attacked by a savage dog in the very house! I hope the hound is securely kennelled."

"Well, he isn't, sir," Williams said, with just the glint of a grin on his dry features. "And it wasn't altogether Rollo's fault. That dog was so devoted to Miss Christiana as you never see. And he got to know as the poor young lady was dying. So he creeps into the house and lies before her bedroom door, and when Mr. Henson comes along the dog takes it in his 'ead as he wants to go in there. And now Rollo's got inside, and nobody except Miss Enid dare go near. I pity that there undertaker when he comes."

Walker shuddered slightly. Longdean Grange was a fearful place for the nerves. Nothing of the routine or the decorous ever happened there. The fees were high and the remuneration prompt, or Walker would have handed over his patient cheerfully to somebody else. Not for a moment did he imagine that Williams was laughing at him. Well, he need not see the body, which was a comfort. With a perfectly easy conscience he could give a certificate of death. And if only somebody would stop that hideous bell! Someone was singing quietly in the drawing-room, and the music seemed to be strangely bizarre and out of place.

Inside it seemed like a veritable house of the dead—the shadow of tragedy loomed everywhere. The dust rose in clouds from the floor as the servants passed to and fro. They were all clad in black, and shuffled uneasily, as if conscious that their clothes did not belong to them. Enid came out into the hall to meet the doctor. Her face seemed terribly white and drawn; there was something in her eyes that suggested anxiety more than grief.

"I suppose you have come principally to see Mr. Henson?" she said. "But my sister—"

"No occasion to intrude upon your grief for a moment, Miss Henson," Walker said, quietly. "As I have told you before, there was very little hope for your sister from the first. It was a melancholy satisfaction to me to find my diagnosis confirmed in every detail by so eminent an authority as Dr. Hatherly Bell. I will give you a certificate with pleasure—at once."

"You would like to see my sister?" Enid suggested.

The quivering anxiety was in her eyes again, the strained look on her face. Walker was discreetly silent as to what he had heard about that bloodhound, but he had by no means forgotten it.

"Not the least occasion, I assure you," he said, fervently. "Your sister had practically passed away when I last saw her. There are times when—er—you see—but really there is no necessity."

"Mr. Henson is terribly fastidious about these things."

"Then he shall be satisfied. I shall tell him that I have—er—seen the body. And I have, you know. In these matters a medical man cannot be too careful. If you will provide me with pen and ink—"

"Thank you very much. Will you come this way, please?"

Walker followed into the drawing-room. Mrs. Henson, wearing something faded and dishevelled in the way of a mourning dress, was crooning some dirge at the piano. Her white hair was streaming loosely over her shoulders, there was a vacant stare in her eyes. The intruders might have been statues for all the heed she took of them. Presently the discordant music ceased, and she began to pace noiselessly up and down the room.

"Another one gone," she murmured; "the best-beloved. It is always the best-beloved that dies, and the one we hate that is left. Take all those coaches away, send the guests back home. Why do they come chattering and feasting here? She shall be drawn by four black horses to Churchfield in the dead of the night, and there laid in the family vault."

"Mrs. Henson's residence," Enid explained, in a whisper. "It is some fifteen miles away. She has made up her mind that my sister shall be taken away as she says—to-morrow night. Is this paper all that is necessary for the—you understand? I have telephoned to the undertaker in Brighton."

Walker hastened to assure the girl that what little further formality was required he would see to himself. All he desired now was to visit Henson and get out of the house as soon as possible. As he hurried from the drawing-room he heard Mrs. Henson crooning and muttering, he saw the vacant glare in her eyes, and vaguely wondered how soon he should have another patient here.

Reginald Henson sat propped up in his bed, white and exhausted. Beyond doubt he had had a terrible shock and fright, and the droop of his eyelids told of shattered nerves. There was a thick white bandage round his throat, his left shoulder was strapped tightly. He spoke with difficulty.

"Do we feel any better this morning?" Walker asked, cheerfully.

"No, we don't," said Henson, with a total absence of his usual graciousness of manner. "We feel confoundedly weak, and sick, and dizzy. Every time I drop off to sleep I wake with a start and a feeling that that infernal dog is smothering me. Has the brute been shot yet?"

"I don't fancy so; in fact, he is still at his post upstairs, and therefore—"

"Therefore you have not seen the body of my poor dear cousin?"

"Otherwise I could have given no certificate," Walker said, with dignity. "If I have satisfied myself, sir, and the requirements of the law, why, then, everybody is satisfied. I have seen the body."

Technically the little doctor spoke the truth. Henson muttered something that sounded like an apology. Walker smiled graciously and suggested that rest and a plain diet were all that his patient needed. Rest was the great thing. The bandages need not be removed for a day or two, at the expiration of which time he would look in again. Once the road was reached in safety Walker took off his hat and wiped the beads from his forehead.

"What a house," he muttered. "What a life to lead. Thank goodness I need not go there again before Saturday. If anybody were to offer me a small glass of brandy with a little soda now, I should feel tempted to break through my rule and drink it."

Meanwhile the long terror of the day dragged on inside the house. The servants crept about the place on tiptoe, the hideous bell clanged out, Mrs. Henson paced wearily up and down the drawing-room, singing and muttering to herself, until Enid was fain to fly or break down and yell hysterically. It was one of Margaret Henson's worst days.

The death of Christiana seemed to affect her terribly. Enid watched her in terror. More than once she was fearful that the frail thread would snap—the last faint glimmer of reason go out for ever. And yet it would be madness to tell Margaret Henson the truth. In the first place she would not have understood, and on the other hand she might have comprehended enough to betray to Reginald Henson. As it was, her grief was obvious and sincere enough. The whole thing was refinedly cruel, but really there was no help for it. And things had gone on splendidly.

Henson was powerless to interfere, and the doctor was satisfied. Once she had put her hand to the plough Enid's quick brain saw her through. But she would have been hard put to it to deceive Henson under his very nose without the help of the bloodhound. Now she could see her way still farther. She waited nervously for a ring from the lodge-gates to the house, and about four o'clock it came. The undertaker was at the gates waiting for an escort to the Grange.

Enid passed her tongue out over a pair of dry lips. The critical moment was at hand. If she could get through the next hour she was safe. If not—but there must be no "if not," she told herself. The undertaker came, suave, quiet, respectful, but he dropped back from the bedroom door as he saw two gleaming, amber eyes regarding him menacingly.

"The dog loved my sister," Enid explained, quietly. "But he has found his way to her room, and he refuses to move. He fancies that we have done something her…. Oh, no, I couldn't poison him! And it would be a dreadful thing if there were to be anything like a struggle here. Come, Rollo."

Evidently the dog had learned his lesson well. He wagged his great tail, but refused to move. The undertaker took a couple of steps forward and Rollo's crest rose. There was a flash of white teeth and a growl. At the end of half an hour no progress had been made.

"There's only one thing for it," suggested Williams, in his rusty voice. "We can get the dog away for ten minutes at midnight. He likes a run then, and I'll bring the other dogs to fetch him, like."

"My time is very valuable just now," the undertaker suggested, humbly.

"Then you had better measure me," said Enid, turning a face absolutely flaming red and deadly white to the speaker. "It is a dreadful, ghastly business altogether, but I cannot possibly think of any other way. The idea of anything like a struggle here is abhorrent…. And the dog's fidelity is so touching. My sister and I were exactly alike, except that she was fairer than me."

The undertaker was understood to demur slightly on professional grounds.
It was very irregular and not in the least likely to give satisfaction.

"What does it matter?" Enid cried, passionately. She was acting none the less magnificently because her nerves were quivering like harpstrings. "When I am dead you can fling me in a ditch, for all I care. We are a strange family and do strange things. The question of satisfaction need not bother you. Take my measure and send the coffin home to-morrow, and we will manage to do the rest. Then to-morrow night you will have a four-horse hearse here at eleven o'clock, and drive the coffin to Churchfield Church, where you will be expected. After that your work will be finished."

The bewildered young man responded that things should be exactly as the young lady required. He had seen many strange and wild things in his time, but none so strange and weird as this. It was all utterly irregular, of course, but people after all had a right to demand what they paid for. Enid watched the demure young man in black down the corridor, and then everything seemed to be enveloped in a dense purple mist, the world was spinning under her feet, there was a great noise like the rush of mighty waters in her brain. With a great effort she threw off the weakness and came to herself, trembling from head to foot.

"Courage," she murmured, "courage. This life has told on me more than I thought. With Chris's example before me I must not break down now."