"Are you sure you have made no mistake?" I asked. "This is a facsimile of the paper which you took from the hollow of the stick. Look again!"
I gave it back to him and he scratched his head over it for a little.
Then he wrote the directions again upon a second sheet of paper, and when he had written, tore off a corner of the paper.
"Ah!" said I, "that is what I thought." He handed it to me again, and it ran now:--
"The S aisle of S. Helen"s Church. Three chains east by the compa.s.s of the east window."
On that corner which had been torn a word had been written. I knew the word. It would be "Cornish." I knew, too, who had torn off the corner.
The cross still lies then three Cornish chains east of that window, or should do so. We at all events have not disturbed it, for we do not wish to have continually before our eyes a reminder of those days when the sailors watched the house at Merchant"s Point. Even as it is, I start up too often from my sleep in the dark night and peer forward almost dreading again to see the flutter of white at the foot of the bed, and to hear again the sound of some one choking.
THE END.