"What mine?" Gurdon asked.

"Why, the Four Finger Mine, of course," was the totally unexpected
reply. "They said that Charles had lost his life in the Four Finger
Mine. It was in a kind of dream that I saw his body lying there,
murdered. But I shall wake from the dream presently, and he will come
back to me, come back in the evening, as he always used to when the sun
was setting beyond the pines."

There was something so utterly sad and hopeless in this that Gurdon
averted his eyes from the girl's face. He glanced in the direction of the
door; then it required all his self control to repress a cry, for in the
comparative gloom of the passage beyond, he could just make out the
figure of Vera, who stood there with her finger on her lip as if imposing
silence. He could see that in her hand she held something that looked
like a chisel. A moment later she flitted away once more, leaving Gurdon
to puzzle his brain as to what it all meant.

"I am sorry for all this," the cripple said. "You have entirely by
accident come face to face with a phase in my life which is sacred and
inviolate. Really, if I had no other reason for reducing you to silence,
this would be a sufficiently powerful inducement. My dear Beth, I really
must ask you--"

Whatever the cripple might have intended to say, the speech was never
finished; for, at that moment, the electric lights vanished suddenly,
plunging the whole house into absolute darkness. A moment later,
footsteps came hurrying along in the hall, and a voice was heard to say
that the fuse from the meter had gone, and it would be impossible to turn