She was not
in the house--she had gone to the mill. Ah! What was that they had said?
An infamous thought passed through the scoundrel's mind. Then, in what
he half believed was an access of virtuous fury, he began by the dim
light to rummage in the drawers of the desk for such loose coin or
valuables as, in the perfect security of the ranch, were often left
unguarded. Suddenly he heard a heavy footstep on the threshold, and
turned.
An awful vision--a recollection, so unexpected, so ghostlike in that
weird light that he thought he was losing his senses--stood before him.
It moved forwards with staring eyeballs and white and open lips from
which a horrible inarticulate sound issued that was the speech of no
living man! With a single desperate, almost superhuman effort Stephen
Forsyth bounded aside, leaped from the window, and ran like a madman
from the house. Then the apparition trembled, collapsed, and sank in an
undistinguishable heap to the ground.
When Josephine Forsyth returned an hour later with her mill foreman, she
was startled to find her helpless patient in a fit on the floor of her
room.
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