As he reached it, he glanced over his shoulder at the silent,

blood-stained form lying on the floor; he wondered whether his father

were dead or only stunned. For a moment, he wished that the blow had

been fatal: he, Heyton, would be the Marquess; there would be plenty of

money ready to his hand, there would be no need to steal his own jewels,

he thought, with an hysterical giggle. But he could leave nothing to

chance now. With another glance at the motionless figure, he stole from

the room and reached his own.

The unnatural calm which had supported him during the last few minutes

had deserted him by this time, and, in closing the door, he did so

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clumsily enough to make a sound; the sound, slight as it was, struck him

with renewed terror, and, in crossing the room, he stumbled against a

chair and overthrew it; and let the two keys slip from his fingers. The

sound of the falling chair was loud and distinct enough to fill him with

apprehension, and he stood breathless and listened, as if he expected

the whole household to awake.

There was a movement in Miriam's room, and he heard her voice calling to

him softly.

"Was that you, Percy?" she asked, in the tone of one just awakened from

sleep.

He was silent for a moment; it seemed hours to him--then he slipped into

the bed, and, with a yawn, as if she had roused him from sleep, he

replied, "What is it?"

"I don't know," she said. "I thought I heard a noise."

"Oh, that!" he said, with another yawn. "I knocked over the chair by the

bed, reaching for a glass of water. For goodness' sake, go to sleep and

don't bother!"

Mentally cursing his wife, Heyton closed his eyes and tried to think.

Strangely enough, his lack of imagination helped him; the imaginative

man, in Heyton's position, would have conjured up all the terrible

possibilities which environed him; but Heyton's mind was dull and

narrow, and so he was able to concentrate on actual facts and actual

chances.

Up to the present, he told himself, there was absolutely nothing to

connect him with the robbery and the--murder, if murder it was. He felt

sure that the Marquess had not seen him in that brief moment, when the

old man stood in the doorway; if he had done so, he would certainly have

spoken Heyton's name; there was nothing to show that the blow had been

dealt by Heyton; with the selfishness of the baser kind of criminal, he

had refrained from examining the motionless figure, lest he should be

stained by the blood which flowed from the wound. No; the robbery would

be laid to the charge of the ordinary burglar.




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