me by force. You yourself saw the bruises. I became mad, and drew the
loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood of the windlass. My first
husband sank with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well!"


_VI.--The Mystery Cleared Up_


On arrival in London, Robert Audley received a letter from Clara Talboys
saying that Luke Marks, the man whom he had saved in the fire at the
Castle Inn, was lying at his mother's cottage at Audley, and expressed a
very earnest wish to see him. Robert took train at once to Audley.

The dying man confessed that on the night of George Talboys's
disappearance, when going home to his mother's cottage, he heard groans
come from the laurel bushes in the shrubbery near the old well. On
search, he found Talboys covered with slime, and with a broken arm. He
carried the crippled man to his mother's cottage, washed, fed, and
nursed him.

Next day Talboys gave him a five-pound note to accompany him to the town
of Brentwood, where he called on a surgeon to have his broken arm set
and dressed. That done, Talboys wrote two notes in pencil with his left
hand, and gave them to Luke to deliver--one with a cross to be handed to
Lady Audley, and the other to the nephew of Sir Michael, and then took
train to London in a second-class carriage.

Phoebe, who had seen from her window Lady Audley pushing George Talboys
into the well, said that my lady was in their power, and that she would
do anything for them to keep her secret. So the letters were not