His sons never knew the effort that this speech cost him. He spoke with such manifest hesitation that Willie, who quickly interpreted the less-pronounced signs of a man's thoughts, winked a warning at his brother.
"Not a word now, John. Just leave things as they are."
Under any ordinary conditions he would be right. He could never guess the nature of the chains that encircled his father, delivering him fettered to the torture, bound hand and foot, body and soul.
At last they all retired to their rooms, the boys to whisper kindly plans for keeping their father a prisoner again in their hands; Mason to lie, open-eyed, dry-eyed, through the night, mourning for that which might not be.
The rising sun dispelled the dark phantoms that flitted before his vision.
He fell into a fitful slumber, disturbed by vivid dreams. Once he was on a storm-swept sea at night, on a sinking ship, a ship with a crew of dead men, and a dead captain at the helm.
Driving onward through the raging waves, he could feel the vessel settling more surely, as she rushed into each yawning caldron. Suddenly, through the wreck of flying spindrift, he saw a smooth harbor, a sheltered basin, in which vessels rode in safety. There were houses beyond, with cheerful lights, and men and women were watching the doomed craft from the firm security of the land.
But, strain his eyes as he would, he could see no entrance to that harbor; naught save furious seas breaking over relentless walls of granite.
And the captain turned corpselike eyes toward him. It was Philip Anson. The dreamer uttered a wild beast's howl, and shrank away.
Then he awoke to find Willie standing by his bedside with soothing words.
"It is all right, father. You were disturbed in your sleep. Don't get up yet. It is only five o'clock."
At that hour a policeman left his cottage in a village on the Yorkshire coast, and walked leisurely toward the Grange House.
He traversed four miles of rough country, and the sun was hot, so he did not hurry. About half-past six he reached the farm. There were no signs of activity such as may be expected in the country at that hour.
He examined three sides of the building carefully--the sea front was inaccessible--and waited many minutes before he knocked at the door. There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly. The third time his summons would have aroused the Seven Sleepers, but none came.