At exactly two o'clock on the seventeenth, Rupert Sedilia, who had just returned from India, was thoughtfully descending the hill toward Sloperton manor.

"If I can prove that my aunt Lady Selina was married before my father died, I can establish my claim to Sloperton Grange," he uttered, half aloud.

He paused, for a sudden trembling of the earth beneath his feet, and a terrific explosion, as of a park of artillery, arrested his progress.

At the same moment he beheld a dense cloud of smoke envelop the churchyard of Sloperton, and the western tower of the Grange seemed to be lifted bodily from its foundation.

The air seemed filled with falling fragments, and two dark objects struck the earth close at his feet.