"My child," said he, "let it trickle very slowly over your tongue and down your throat; it is the throat and the adjacent organs which suffer most from thirst." He then took a spoonful himself, not to drink after an assassin.

He then gave a spoonful to Burnley with the same instructions, and rose from his seat and gave the can to Grace, and said, "The rest of this pittance must not be touched for six hours at least." Burnley, instead of complying with the wise advice given him, tossed the liquid down his throat with a gesture, and then dashing down the spoon, said, "I'll have the rest on't if I die for it," and made a furious rush at Grace Hope.
She screamed faintly, and Hope met him full in that incautious rush, and felled him like a log with a single blow.

Burnley lay there with his heels tapping the ground for a little while, then he got on his hands and knees, and crawled away to the farthest corner of his own place, and sat brooding.
That night when Grace retired to rest Hope lay down at her feet, with his hammer in his hand, and when one slept the other watched, for they feared an attack.

Toward the morning of the next day Grace's quick senses heard a mysterious noise in Burnley's quarter; she woke her father.

Directly he went to the place, and he found Burnley at work on his knees tearing away with his hands and nails at the ruins of the shaft.