It was my watch, and at midnight, after Stoddard and

Larry had reconnoitered the grounds and Bates and I

had made sure of all the interior fastenings, I sent

them off to bed and made myself comfortable with a

pipe in the library.

I was glad of the respite, glad to be alone,-to consider

my talk with Marian Devereux at St. Agatha's,

and her return with Pickering. Why could she not always

have been Olivia, roaming the woodland, or the

girl in gray, or that woman, so sweet in her dignity,

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who came down the stairs at the Armstrongs'? Her

own attitude toward me was so full of contradictions;

she had appeared to me in so many moods and guises,

that my spirit ranged the whole gamut of feeling as I

thought of her. But it was the recollection of Pickering's

infamous conduct that colored all my doubts of

her. Pickering had always been in my way, and here,

but for the chance by which Larry had found the notes,

I should have had no weapon to use against him.

The wind rose and drove shrilly around the house.

A bit of scaffolding on the outer walls rattled loose

somewhere and crashed down on the terrace. I grew

restless, my mind intent upon the many chances of the

morrow, and running forward to the future. Even if

I won in my strife with Pickering I had yet my way

to make in the world. His notes were probably worthless,

-I did not doubt that. I might use them to procure

his removal as executor, but I did not look forward

with any pleasure to a legal fight over a property that

had brought me only trouble.

Something impelled me to go below, and, taking a

lantern, I tramped somberly through the cellar, glanced

at the heating apparatus, and, remembering that the

chapel entrance to the tunnel was unguarded, followed

the corridor to the trap, and opened it. The cold air

blew up sharply and I thrust my head down to listen.

A sound at once arrested me. I thought at first it

must be the suction of the air, but Glenarm House was

no place for conjectures, and I put the lantern aside and

jumped down into the tunnel. A gleam of light showed

for an instant, then the darkness and silence were complete.

I ran rapidly over the smooth floor, which I had traversed

so often that I knew its every line. My only

weapon was one of Stoddard's clubs. Near the Door

of Bewilderment I paused and listened. The tunnel

was perfectly quiet. I took a step forward and stumbled

over a brick, fumbled on the wall for the opening

which we had closed carefully that afternoon, and at

the instant I found it a lantern flashed blindingly in

my face and I drew back, crouching involuntarily, and

clenching the club ready to strike.




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