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the retreating figure, until Ransford had disappeared within his own garden; still wondering and speculating, but not about his own affairs, he turned across Paradise at last and made his way towards the farther comer. There was a little wieket-gate there, set in the ivied wall; as Bryce opened it, a man in the working dress of a stone-mason, whom he recognized as being one of the master-mason's staff, came running out of the bushes. His face, too, was white, and his eyes were big with excitement. And recognizing Bryce, he halted, panting.

"What is it, Varner?" asked Bryce calmly. "Something happened?"

The man swept his hand across his forehead as if he were dazed, and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"A man!" he gasped. "Foot of St. Wrytha's Stair there, doctor. Dead—or if not dead, near it. I saw it!"

Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.

"You saw—what?" he demanded. "Saw him—fall. Or rather—flung!" panted Varner. "Somebody—couldn't see who, nohow—flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell right over the steps—crash!"

Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed—a low, open archway gained by the halfruinous stair. It was forty feet at least from the ground.

"You saw him—thrown!" he exclaimed. "Thrown—down there? Impossible, man!"

"Tell you I saw it!" asserted Varner doggedly. "I