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Dr Rowland’s experiment had failed. There was nothing in the bottom of the crucible, that should have held flakes of pure gold, but a little evil-smelling deposit.

He laughed at himself, then damped his furnaces, locked the door of his laboratory and went out into the evening air.

A melancholy light was diffused over the far horizon. The delicate glow of evening diffused the dry September landscape into a semblance of beauty.

It was a long time since Doctor Rowland had left his laboratory or given much thought to anything besides his experiments. Now that the last of these had failed, his interest in worldly affairs revived, and he thought with delight of Julia Roseingrave and of the long hours which he would, for a space, spend in her company. And how she would comfort him in his disappointment, and how he would discuss with her fresh efforts to be made in the future.

And then he recalled, as idly he watched some thistledown seeds blown across his path, that Julia Roseingrave was to be married and would go away, leaving him quite desolate.

‘Why that,’ he said, half aloud, ‘would overthrow me quite.’

And he wondered at what manner of trance he had been in, so to overlook this great misfortune, and he recalled the coming of Phoebe.

Had it been today, or yesterday, or the day before? What had she said? ‘Sir William’s wife has come back and Julia and Mother Cloke are going to give her the foxglove tea.’ There was no trust to be put in anything that the idiot might say. But that did not concern him. He must keep Julia for himself.

He returned to his stable and saddled his willing horse, which yearned for the road after too long a stabling, and rode briskly to Holcot Grange.

He arrived there when the dusk had settled into complete dark. He had never been to the deserted Grange before, and he never thought of using the large front gates, but went instead to the servants’ entrance and left his horse there, and Mrs Barlow brought him into the Grange by the side door, which she used herself, and so into the presence of Sir William as he was leaving the music-room, with an intent look as one drawn by a lodestone against his will, to go through the park and under the chestnut trees to the Dower House where both his wife and Julia Roseingrave waited for him.

The young man did not recognise his visitor and made a movement to pass him, as if, indeed, he were not there. But Dr Rowland detained him by taking him strongly by the wrist, drawing him into the room where all the broken musical instruments stood, and one lamp burnt in the window place.

‘Where are you going, Sir William Notley? To visit Miss Roseingrave?’

‘That is my destination,’ replied the other in a muffled voice. ‘And who are you, for indeed I cannot recall your features? But whoever you are,’ he added, with impatience, ‘you must not interrupt me now, I have serious business to do.’

‘You look disordered,’ said Dr Rowland, spying at him deeply from behind his silver-rimmed spectacles, ‘and as if you were weighed down by dead sins and a debauched mind. Your pulse beats too fast and I think you are fevered. It were better for you to leave Julia Roseingrave alone.’

‘I am to marry her, in two days’ time,’ and like one who has conned a lesson, the young man repeated, ‘two days’ time, in two days’ time I am to be married to Julia Roseingrave.’

‘No,’ said Dr Rowland, flinging away from him with a movement of contempt the young man’s hot hand, which until now he had held in his own, ‘you’re going to do nothing of the kind. I should have stopped this before. But I have been busy with an experiment which has, alas, come to nothing.’

‘You will stop my marriage?’

‘Miss Roseingrave is mine,’ said Dr Rowland. ‘How do you think that we have, either of us, endured this solitude, if we did not belong one to another? Whatever feeling you may have for her, or she for you, it is but visionary and transitory, she and I are together in this landscape, in this place, and always will be. You cannot remove her.’

‘You are some demon or devil in disguise, seeking to thwart me!’

‘Say, perhaps, rather your good angel,’ smiled Dr Rowland. ‘Do you think that you would taste any joys at all with a woman like Miss Roseingrave? Fie, for shame, what nonsensical notion have you allowed to get the possession of you? Has she put a spell on you?’ he added, with a peering look. ‘I did not think that she was clever enough for that.’

‘A spell, a spell,’ repeated the young man dully. He sat down by one of the viols with the snapped strings and took his face in his hands.

‘Don’t you understand,’ said Dr Rowland, in a fashion not unkindly. ‘She belongs to me and has done so ever since she was a young girl.’

‘Are you married to her?’ asked Sir William.

‘If you like to believe it! There was a ceremony with a hedge priest down in the marsh and the guests were a motley and curious crowd. We have never avowed a union.’

‘You lie,’ said Sir William, heavily struggling to his feet, ‘I must go to her. She has commanded me. She has appointed something for me to do.’

Dr Rowland’s manner was now cold and ferocious. ‘Have you become lunatic with fond and idle imaginings and unrestrained fancies? Do you not see that the net of the devil is about you? Even if you be something of a fiend yourself, a larger demon has you in his power. What, do you want to act like an idiot or a child? Be precise, tell me what has happened. Maybe I can save you. Knowing her I should have foreseen this peril,’ he added in a more gentle tone. ‘But as I say, I have been absorbed.’

Sir William laid his hands on Dr Rowland’s shoulders, and said in the voice of a child confessing a small fault:

‘She has my wife there—my true wife, and she has commanded me to destroy her tonight. Which can very easily be done, and I am not afraid of telling you, for no one would believe your word against mine.’

Dr Rowland took off his spectacles and out of his tired, bloodshot eyes stared at the young man with a great compassion. Sir William melted before this look and sighed:

‘Save me, if you can, from what I am about to do, for I cannot save myself. A while ago I was without hope, but now I am dimly conscious that there is help coming.’

Dr Rowland put his hand into the bosom of his old-fashioned habit and drew out a crucifix.

‘This is no use to me, but may be to you,’ he said. ‘Hold it tightly in your hand, and do not stir from this room until I return.’

As Sir William, clasping the sacred symbol, sank in the window place beside the solitary lamp, Dr Rowland turned through the sultry night under the yellow chestnut trees towards the Dower House.

He found Julia Roseingrave sewing the ruffles to the dress that was the colour of cowslips, embroidered with blue-black violets.

She scowled when she saw that it was Dr Rowland, and not Sir William Notley, who brusquely entered the parlour.

‘How is it I did not know you before, you wicked, foolish woman?’ he pondered quietly.

She shrank away from him and her sewing dropped from her fingers.

‘Have you been trying spells and charms, incantations and witcheries?’ he demanded, harshly, approaching her.

‘No, master, no!’ She shook her head. ‘I wanted to get away, that was only natural, was it not?’

‘You know that you’ll never get away. You are here for ever. And now I shall leave you.’

She began to whimper.

‘Oh, not that! Not that! I did not really mean to be unfaithful. I should soon have left him. It was only that I wanted a chance of seeing the great varied world. I meant to be rid of him.’

‘With your foxglove potion, I suppose,’ he interrupted; with a quick movement of his strong hands he knocked over a white glass of cordial that stood on a tray on the table in the spot where the foxgloves had been. ‘You and your stupid womanish tricks! All of them learnt from me and misunderstood in the learning. I thought just now,’ he said with some sorrow, ‘that I could not endure to lose you. My experiments failed and I thought of you when my mind was empty, and I went up to Holcot Grange, to tell the young man that you were mine—that you were mine—I have no part in you now. Then I found what you had done to him.’

‘It is nothing, master! It is nothing!’ she sighed. ‘Whatever he said to you was a lie—a lie!’

‘Oh, no, he was already an outcast from Heaven, but you, gorgeously tricked out with all the delights of the senses, were going to make him an inhabitant of Hell.’

Julia Roseingrave began to weep. Dr Rowland took his spectacles from his pocket, wiped them, and placed them on the bridge of his high nose.

‘Where is this woman, his lady wife?’ he asked.

And Miss Roseingrave said: ‘Upstairs. But he will never take her back. He belongs to me, I tell you.’

Dr Rowland made no answer to this, but went up the narrow stairway. The door of Mrs Roseingrave’s room stood open.

She lay there, no more rigid than usual, and not much paler than usual, but Dr Rowland’s one glance told him that the woman was dead. He was glad of this, but he said nothing to Phoebe, who lay stretched on the ground beside the corpse, playing by the light of the candle, with a large wooden doll.

At the door of Julia’s bedroom he knocked respectfully. It was almost instantly opened, and Lady Notley stood within, her face newly bathed, her hair newly combed, all radiant and expectant.

‘Your husband cannot come to you tonight,’ he said, ‘but I have come to fetch you to him.’

‘He is not angry?’ whispered the lady fearfully.

‘No, he is not angry with anyone save himself.’

She trusted this strange-looking man and turned back in the room to fetch her small bag, in which lay her few treasures, and followed him down the stairs and out through the door under the ripening woodbine.

As they left the house a long wail of despair smote their ears. Lady Notley shuddered.

‘It is that poor idiot,’ she breathed fearfully. But Dr Rowland knew that it was not Phoebe but Julia who had wailed.