CHAPTER XI.
HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING Nothing now held Mr.Ransom to his room.

The two women in whose fate he was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired and there was no other eye he feared.

Indeed, he courted an interview with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had little reason to think it could not.

So he went down-stairs.
In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of reality.

Here was no mystery.