"What are you up to?" said the policeman.
The Father was suddenly aware that he had no hat upon his head, and that his appearance, as he stole forward in his cassock, with his eyes intently fixed upon the bench in the Park, was probably unusual enough to excite suspicion.
"It's all right, policeman," he answered, quickly, thrusting some money into the constable's hand.
Then, breaking from him, the Father hurried towards the bench, bitterly vexed at the interruption. When he reached it nothing was there. Guildea's experience had been almost exactly repeated and, filled with unreasonable disappointment, the Father returned to the house, entered it, shut the door and hastened up the narrow stairway into the library.
On the hearthrug, close to the fire, he found Guildea lying with his head lolled against the armchair from which he had recently risen. There was a shocking expression of terror on his convulsed face. On examining him the Father found that he was dead.
The doctor, who was called in, said that the cause of death was failure of the heart.
When Father Murchison was told this, he murmured:
"Failure of the heart! It was that then!"
He turned to the doctor and said:
"Could it have been prevented?"