Again he puzzled, and then decided with himself that, if he meant to keep sane, he must practice faith and trust in God.Septimus May had said that such unparalleled things sometimes happened in the world to tryman's faith.Doubtless he was right.
Henceforth the old man determined to stand firmly on the side of the supernatural with the priest.He went further, and blamed his scepticism.It had cost the world a valuable life.He could not, indeed, be censured for that in any court of inquiry.Sceptical men would doubtless say that he had done rightly in refusing Mr.May his experiment.But Sir Walter now convinced himself that he had done wrongly.At such a time, with landmarks vanishing and all accepted laws of matter resolved into chaos, there remained only God to trust.Such a burden as this was not to be borne by any mortal, and Sir Walter determined that he would not bear it.
Were we not told to cast our tribulations before the Almighty? Here, if ever, was a situation beyond the power of human mind to approach, unless a man walked humbly with his hand in his Maker's.Septimus May had been emphatically right.Sir Walter repeated this conviction to himself again and again, like a child.
He descended to details presently.The hidden being, that it had been implicitly agreed could only operate by night in the Grey Room, proved equally potent under noonday sun.But why should it be otherwise? To limit its activities was to limit its powers, and the Almighty alone knew what powers had been granted to it.He shrank from further inquiries or investigations on any but a religious basis.He was now convinced that no natural explanation would exist for what had happened in the Grey Room, and he believed that only through the paths of Christian faith would peace return to him or his house.
Then the present dropped out of his thoughts.They wandered into the past, and he concerned himself with his wife.She it was who had taught him to care for foreign travel.Until his marriage he had hardly left England, save when yachting with friends, and an occasional glimpse of a Mediterranean port was all that Sir Walter knew of the earth outside his own country.But he remembered with gratitude the opportunities won from her.He had taken her round the world, and found himself much the richer in great memories for that experience.
He was still thinking when Mary found him, with his old dog asleep at his feet.She brought him a coat and umbrella, for the threatened stormadvanced swiftly under clouds laden with rain.Reluctantly enough he returned to the present.A telegram had been received from London, directing Dr.Mannering to reach the nearest telephone and communicate direct.The doctor was gone to Newton Abbot, and nothing could be done until he came back.Not knowing what had occupied Sir Walter's mind, Mary urged him to leave Chadlands without delay.
"Put the place into the hands of the police and take me with you," she said."Nothing can be gained by our stopping, and, after this, it is certain the authorities will not rest until they have made a far more searching examination than has ever yet been carried out.They will feel this disaster a challenge.""Thankfully I would go," he answered."Most thankfully I would avoid what is hanging over my head.It was terrible enough when your dear husband died; but now we shall be the centre of interest to half England.Every instinct cries to me to get out of it, but obviously that is impossible, even were I permitted to do so.It is the duty of the police to suspect every man and woman under my roof - myself with the rest.These appalling things have occurred in my home, and I must bear the brunt of them and stand up to all that they mean.No Lennox ever ran from his duty, however painful it might be.The death of this man - so eminent in his calling - will attract tremendous attention and be, as you say, a sort of direct challenge to the authorities for whom he worked.They will resent this second tragedy, and with good reason.The poor man, though I cannot pretend that I admired him, was a force for good in the world, and his peculiar genius was devoted to the detection of crime and punishment of criminals - a very worthy occupation, however painful to our ideas."They sat in the library now, and Henry Lennox spoke to his uncle, with his eye on the window, waiting for the sight of the doctor's car.
"They'll want to tear the place down, very likely.They'll certainly have no mercy on the stones and mortar, any more than they will on us.""They can spare themselves that trouble, and you your fears," declared Septimus May, who had joined them."It is impossible that they will be here until to-morrow.Meantime -""It is easy to see what they will do," proceeded young Lennox, "and what they will think also.Nor can we prevent them, even if we wanted to.I image their theory will be this.They will suppose that Mr.Hardcastle, left in that room alone, was actually on the track of those responsible for Tom's death.They will guess that, in some way, or by some accident, he surprised the author of the tragedy, and the assassin, seeing his danger, resorted to the same unknown means of murder as before.They may imagine some hidden lunatic concealed here, whose presence is only known to some of us.They may suspect a homicidal maniac in me, or my uncle, or Masters, or anybody.Certainly they will seek a natural explanation and flout the idea of any other."The clergyman protested, but Henry was not prepared to traverse the old ground again.
"I have as much right to my opinions as you to yours," he said."And I am positive this is man's work."Then Mary announced that Mannering's car was in sight.The library windows opened on the western side of the house and afforded a view of the main drive, along which the doctor's little hooded car came flying, like a dead leaf in a storm.But it was not alone.A hospital motor ambulance followed behind it.
