I PASSED a sleepless night.

The outrage that had been offered to me was bad enough in itself.But consequences were associated with it which might affect memore seriously still. In so far as the attainment of the oneobject of my life might yet depend on my personal associationwith Miserrimus Dexter, an insurmountable obstacle appeared to benow placed in my way. Even in my husband's interests, ought I topermit a man who had grossly insulted me to approach me again?Although I was no prude, I recoiled from the thought of it.

I arose late, and sat down at my desk, trying to summon energyenough to write to Mr. Playmore--and trying in vain.

Toward noon (while Benjamin happened to be out for a littlewhile) the housekeeper announced the arrival of another strangevisitor at the gate of the villa.

"It's a woman this time, ma'am--or something like one," said thisworthy person, confidentially. "A great, stout, awkward, stupidcreature, with a man's hat on and a man's stick in her hand. Shesays she has got a note for you, and she won't give it to anybody_but_ you. I'd better not let her in--had I?"

Recognizing the original of the picture, I astonished thehousekeeper by consenting to receive the messenger immediately.

Ariel entered the room--in stolid silence, as usual. But Inoticed a change in her which puzzled me. Her dull eyes were redand bloodshot. Traces of tears (as I fancied) were visible on herfat, shapeless cheeks. She crossed the room, on her way to mychair, with a less determined tread than was customary with her.Could Ariel (I asked myself) be woman enough to cry? Was itwithin the limits of possibility that Ariel should approach me insorrow and in fear?

"I hear you have brought something for me?" I said. "Won't yousit down?"

She handed me a letter--without answering and without taking achair. I opened the envelope. The letter inside was written byMiserrimus Dexter. It contained these lines:

"Try to pity me, if you have any pity left for a miserable man;I have bitterly expiated the madness of a moment. If you couldsee me--even you would own that my punishment has been heavyenough. For God's sake, don't abandon me! I was beside myselfwhen I let the feeling that you have awakened in me get thebetter of my control. It shall never show itself again; it shallbe a secret that dies with me. Can I expect you to believe this?No. I won't ask you to believe me; I won't ask you to trust me inthe future. If you ever consent to see me again, let it be in thepresence of any third person whom you may appoint to protect you.I deserve that--I will submit to it; I will wait till time hascomposed your angry feeling against me. All I ask now is leav eto hope. Say to Ariel, 'I forgive him; and one day I will let himsee me again.' She will remember it, for love of me. If you sendher back without a message, you send me to the mad-house. Askher, if you don't believe me.

"MISERRIMUS DEXTER."

I finished the strange letter, and looked at Ariel.

She stood with her eyes on the floor, and held out to me thethick walking-stick which she carried in her hand.

"Take the stick" were the first words she said to me.

"Why am I to take it?" I asked.

She struggled a little with her sluggishly working mind, andslowly put her thoughts into words.

"You're angry with the Master," she said. "Take it out on Me.Here's the stick. Beat me."

"Beat you!" I exclaimed.

"My back's broad," said the poor creature. "I won't make a row.I'll bear it. Drat you, take the stick! Don't vex _him._ Whack itout on my back. Beat _me._"

She roughly forced the stick into my hand; she turned her poorshapeless shoulders to me; waiting for the blow. It was at oncedreadful and touching to see her. The tears rose in my eyes. Itried, gently and patiently, to reason with her. Quite useless!The idea of taking the Master's punishment on herself was the oneidea in her mind. "Don't vex _him,_" she repeated. "Beat _me._"

"What do you mean by 'vexing him'?" I asked.

She tried to explain, and failed to find the words. She showed meby imitation, as a savage might have shown me, what she meant.Striding to the fire-place, she crouched on the rug, and lookedinto the fire with a horrible vacant stare. Then she clasped herhands over her forehead, and rocked slowly to and fro, stillstaring into the fire. "There's how he sits!" she said, with asudden burst of speech. "Hours on hours, there's how he sits!Notices nobody. Cries about _you._"

The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Report ofDexter's health, and the doctor's plain warning of peril waitingfor him in the future.

Even if I could have resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to thevague dread of consequences which now shook me in secret.

"Don't do that!" I cried. She was still rocking herself inimitation of the "Master," and still staring into the fire withher hands to her head. "Get up, pray! I am not angry with himnow. I forgive him."

She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up intentlyinto my face. In that attitude--more like a dog than a humanbeing--she repeated her customary petition when she wanted to fixwords that interested her in her mind.

"Say it again!"

I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied.

"Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as theMaster said it to Me."

I looked back at the letter, and repeated the form of messagecontained in the latter part of it, word for word:

"I forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again."

She sprang to her feet at a bound. For the first time since shehad entered the room her dull face began to break slowly intolight and life.

"That's it!" she cried. "Hear if I can say it, too; hear if I'vegot it by heart."

Teaching her exactly as I should have taught a child, I slowlyfastened the message, word by word, on her mind.

"Now rest yourself," I said; "and let me give you something toeat and drink after your long walk."

I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. She snatched upher stick from the floor, and burst out with a hoarse shout ofjoy. "I've got it by heart!" she cried. "This will cool theMaster's head! Hooray!" She dashed out into the passage like awild animal escaping from its cage. I was just in time to see hertear open the garden gate, and set forth on her walk back at apace which made it hopeless to attempt to follow and stop her.

I returned to the sitting-room, pondering on a question which hasperplexed wiser heads than mine. Could a man who was hopelesslyand entirely wicked have inspired such devoted attachment to himas Dexter had inspired in the faithful woman who had just leftme? in the rough gardener who had carried him out so gently onthe previous night? Who can decide? The greatest scoundrel livingalways has a friend--in a woman or a dog.

I sat down again at my desk, and made another attempt to write toMr. Playmore.

Recalling, for the purpose of my letter, all that MiserrimusDexter had said to me, my memory dwelt with special interest onthe strange outbreak of feeling which had led him to betray thesecret of his infatuation for Eustace's first wife. I saw againthe ghastly scene in the death-chamber--the deformed creaturecrying over the corpse in the stillness of the first dark hoursof the new day. The horrible picture took a strange hold on mymind. I arose, and walked up and down, and tried to turn mythoughts some other way. It was not to be done: the scene was toofamiliar to me to be easily dismissed. I had myself visited theroom and looked at the bed. I had myself walked in the corridorwhich Dexter had crossed on his way to take his last leave ofher.

The corridor? I stopped. My thoughts suddenly took a newdirection, uninfluenced by any effort of my will.

What other association besides the association with Dexter did Iconnect with the corridor? Was it something I had seen during myvisit to Gleninch? No. Was it something I had read? I snatched upthe Report of the Trial to see. It opened at a page whichcontained the nurse's evidence. I read the evidence throughagain, without recovering the lost remembrance until I came tothese lines close at the end:

"Before bed-time I went upstairs to prepare the remains of thedeceased lady for the coffin. The room in which she lay waslocked; the door leading into Mr. Macallan's room being secured,as well as the door leading into the corridor. The keys had beentaken away by Mr. Gale. Two of the men-servants were postedoutside the bedroom to keep watch. They were to be relieved atfour in the morning--that was all they could tell me."

There was my lost association with the corridor! There was whatI ought to have remembered when Miserrimus Dexter was telling meof his visit to the dead!

How had he got into the bedroom--the doors being locked, and thekeys being taken away by Mr. Gale? There was but one of thelocked doors of which Mr. Gale had not got the key--the door ofcommunication between the study and the bedroom. The key wasmissing from this. Had it been stolen? And was Dexter the thief?He might have passed by the men on the watch while they wereasleep, or he might have crossed the corridor in an unguardedinterval while the men were being relieved. But how could he havegot into the bedchamber except by way of the locked study door?He _must_ have had the key! And he _must_ have secreted it weeksbefore Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death! When the nurse firstarrived at Gleninch, on the seventh of the month, her evidencedeclared the key of the door of communication to be then missing.

To what conclusion did these considerations and discoveriespoint? Had Miserrimus Dexter, in a moment of ungovernableagitation, unconsciously placed the clew in my hands? Was thepivot on which turned the whole mystery of the poisoning atGleninch the missing key?

I went back for the third time to my desk. The one person whomight be trusted to find the answer to those questions was Mr.Playmore. I wrote him a full and careful account of all that hadhappened; I begged him to forgive and forget my ungraciousreception of the advice which he had so kindly offered to me; andI promised beforehand to do nothing without first consulting hisopinion in the new emergency which now confronted me.

The day was fine for the time of year; and by way of getting alittle wholesome exercise after the surprises and occupations ofthe morning, I took my letter to Mr. Playmore to the post.

Returning to the villa, I was informed that another visitor waswaiting to see me: a civilized visitor this time, who had givenher name. My mother-in-law--Mrs. Macallan.