That awful yell had wakened Dillwyn from his sleep—a sleep that would have been death but for it. He sprang up and rushed to the open window, but too late! He caught a vague, awful vision of one falling—falling through the air into eternity—but that was all.
It was enough, however; he lit a lamp, and rushed downstairs to the front of the house. There he lowered the lamp and looked about him. Nothing—nothing to be seen. He stepped down from the avenue on to the newly-cemented area that ran round the house, and looked about him with an anxious gaze. Suddenly he found he was stepping on a little crimson line that ran towards him sluggishly.
With a sharp ejaculation he stepped aside. A cold chill ran through him. All at once he knew that it was blood.
Then he went on, following up the red line until he came to—-
Darkham was lying on the pavement, smashed almost out of recognition, yet still alive. Dillwyn knew that by the convulsive twitching of the fingers.
A figure was bending over him. Dillwyn at once saw it was the idiot, and even as he watched, the unhappy creature bent lower and laid a white cloth over the dying man's nose and mouth, pressing it down with a demoniacal force.
Dillwyn hurried forward, calling aloud as he came, but the idiot crouching over Darkham could not hear. At last he reached them and flung himself upon the wretched boy, and tore him from his prey.
The idiot grappled with him in a sort of frenzy, but Dillwyn held on. The lamp threw a dull light upon the dying man's face—but above them and around was gloom.
All at once the idiot desisted from his struggle; he pointed frantically to Darkham.
Dillwyn followed his gaze. Darkham had risen on his elbow—it was the last effort before death. Dillwyn went to him and laid his arm round him, but Darkham pushed him back. Yet it seemed to the younger man that, though Darkham's hatred of him followed him to the grave, his last thoughts were not of him.