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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heath Hover Mystery, by Bertram Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Heath Hover Mystery
+
+Author: Bertram Mitford
+
+Illustrator: F.H. Drestier
+
+Release Date: November 29, 2011 [EBook #38169]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEATH HOVER MYSTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The Heath Hover Mystery
+By Bertram Mitford
+Illustrations by F.H. Drestier
+Published by Ward, Lock and Co Ltd, London, Melbourne and Toronto.
+This edition dated 1911.
+
+The Heath Hover Mystery, by Bertram Mitford.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+THE HEATH HOVER MYSTERY, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE DOOR IN THE CORNER.
+
+John Seward Mervyn lay back in his accustomed armchair, and--looked.
+
+The room was of medium size, partly panelled, and partly hung with dark
+red papering.  It was low ceiled, and the bending beams between the
+strips of whitewash were almost black.  This added to the gloominess of
+the apartment whether by day or night; and now it was night.  To be
+precise it was the stroke of midnight.
+
+A bright fire glowed and flared in the wide, old-world chimney grate,
+but even this failed altogether to dispel a certain suggestion of the
+hauntings of vague, shadowy evil influences that seemed to be in the
+atmosphere.  The lamplight too, was cheerful enough, and yet not.  It
+would have been, anywhere else, but here it seemed that any element of
+cheerfulness must somehow infallibly miss its way.
+
+The moan of the winter wind surged around the gables of the old house,
+rising now and then to a most doleful howling, and within, beams and
+rafters cracked, breaking out loudly in new and unexpected places.  Also
+in a manner somewhat nerve-trying to one who sat there in the ghostly
+midnight solitude--as this one sat, and he in the full consciousness
+that for years and years past nobody had been found to inhabit this
+house even rent free and for the sole consideration of residing within
+the same.  And he was trying the experiment.
+
+John Seward Mervyn was a man who prided himself on being an absolute and
+cynical sceptic with regard to the supernatural, and he was poor.
+Dreadful tales were afloat with regard to this particular tenement, but
+at such he laughed.  Nobody had been able to inhabit it even for weeks.
+Several had made the attempt, allured by the inducement of rent free.
+They had remained just long enough to begin to congratulate themselves
+upon such a find--and then--out they had gone, bag and baggage, without
+so much as a day's notice.  Several in succession; and what they had
+seen--or heard--somehow or other none had been willing--or able--to
+disclose.  But the present occupant had been in possession for some
+months, to the marvel of the neighbourhood.
+
+Now he sat there at dead midnight in absolute solitude.  Not a soul was
+within call; the nearest habitations were two or three labourers'
+cottages on the further side of a wooded hill.  His thoughts were of the
+past, and they were not pleasant, those of the past seldom are.  A
+couple of pipes were on the table at his elbow, and a tobacco jar--
+likewise a square whisky bottle, a syphon and a tumbler, but of this he
+had partaken but little.  But somehow he felt his solitude to-night as
+he had never felt it since he had entered on possession.  To-night he
+felt he would have given something for human companionship in almost any
+shape.  The winter wind howled without, not loud but inexpressibly
+dismal.  And he sat, and--looked.
+
+Looked!  At what?
+
+In a corner of the room was a door--a massive door.  It had a curious
+old-world, wrought-iron handle.  And at this he was looking--gazing, in
+fact, more than intently.  Was it slowly turning?
+
+He could have sworn that it was.  Well, what, then?  The door was
+securely locked, the key was in a very safe place.  And the door led
+nowhere and from nowhere.  It led, in fact, to a vault-like underground
+cellar whose solid walls were totally devoid of outlet.  When he had
+entered on possession he had exhaustively verified this, and having thus
+satisfied himself had laughed all the startling and shadowy
+possibilities which popular report ascribed to the place to utter scorn.
+And yet, now to-night, he could have sworn that the handle of this door
+was slowly turning.
+
+To anybody less sceptical--less unaffectedly and wholesouledly
+sceptical--there was that in the conviction which would have set up a
+blood-chilling, hair-raising effect.  The utter loneliness of the place,
+the midnight sounds, the moaning of the doleful winter wind, the
+crackings and creakings of the ghostly old house, the dreadful legends
+that centred round that very vault, of which the movement of this very
+door handle was a preliminary incident--would have been sufficient to
+have driven out such into the pitiless winter night rather than remain
+sitting there--on the watch.
+
+On the watch--for what?  Could a spectral hand undo that lock?  Then the
+watcher rubbed his eyes and looked again.  Certainly the handle had
+turned.  Its broad iron loop had been horizontal before, now it was at
+an angle of forty-five.  Of that he was as sure as that he was alive and
+sitting there.  And then he remembered that--this was the night.
+
+It doesn't matter what day of the month it was.  Manifestations were
+liable to occur at any time, and sporadically, but there were two nights
+in the year when--Well he had obtained a vague inkling as to what might
+be expected, but the last of these two dates had befallen prior to his
+occupation.  This was the second of them within the year.  This was the
+night.
+
+"Now this is all unutterable bosh," Mervyn said to himself.  "I'll have
+another drink anyhow.  Then I'll turn in."
+
+He reached for the whisky bottle, and filled up.  Yet he was conscious
+of a feeling as though a chill were running down him from head to foot,
+notwithstanding that the fire was glowing with a heat that was almost
+fierce; and with the hissing squirt of the syphon into the tumbler there
+mingled a sound as though something or somebody were shuffling or
+groping behind that heavily locked door.  He took a long pull at his
+tumbler, almost emptying it.  Then he looked again at the broad iron
+loop handle.  Its straight lower end, which before had stood at an angle
+of forty five, was now vertical.
+
+His eyes dilated upon the phenomenon.  The cold chill that ran through
+his system seemed to intensify.  Mervyn, though by no means a total
+abstainer was a temperate man--so it was not that.  Well, the obvious
+thing was to go and get the key, and open the door and satisfy himself.
+But, for the life of him he--could not.
+
+No.  He could not.  He sat staring more and more wildly with dilated
+eyes.  He was even horribly conscious of a slow pallor creeping over his
+face.  What did it mean?  The whole atmosphere of the room seemed
+charged with some evil influence.  An owl hooted melodiously outside.
+It was answered by another.  This seemed in a measure to break the
+spell, for he loved birds and bird voices, and the hooting of owls in
+the dark woods overhanging the long lake-like pond behind his dwelling
+was a sound that often drew him forth on moonlight nights to stand on
+the sluice and listen for an hour at a time.  There was to him nothing
+boding or sinister in the voices of the night birds, any more than there
+was in the jubilant shout of the cuckoo by day, or the twanging of the
+nightingale.
+
+He looked again.  Certainly that door handle was moving, and it could be
+moved by no mortal hand.  Yet to make sure, he found his voice.
+
+"Any one there?" he called, and as he did so he was conscious of a
+suspicion of a quake in his voice.
+
+For answer only a soft drive of sleet against the curtained window, and
+through it he could swear that the door handle slowly creaked.  The door
+itself stood shadowy in the gloom of the corner where the light only
+half reached.
+
+Then something moved.  For the life of him the watcher could not repress
+a start, a thrill of the nerves.  But the sound, the movement, did not
+come from the corner whereon his tense gaze was fixed.  There was a
+little black kitten curled up asleep in an armchair opposite the one in
+which he was seated--a tiny ball of woolly fluff, which during its short
+life had been the regular companion of his lonely evenings, and of which
+he was almost humanly fond.  It, now, was uncurling itself with a sudden
+celerity totally foreign to the usual deliberation of its kind on
+awakening from sleep.  Its round eyes were wide open, and a crescendo
+fire of shrill growls were proceeding from its little throat.  Its back
+was arched, and its fur all standing up, and--its gaze too, was fixed
+upon that door in the shadowy corner.  Then it spat, retreating further
+and further till it was against the back of the chair, for all the world
+as though to repel the onslaught of its natural and hereditary enemy--
+dog.
+
+"The fact is," thought Mervyn, noting this, "I have been too much shut
+up with myself, and the utter, infernal loneliness of life here is
+eating into my nerves."  But the sensible side of this sceptical
+reflection was undermined by another--that there are occasions when
+animals can see what we cannot.  And this tiny creature was showing
+unmistakable and increasing signs of perturbation and alarm.
+
+He spoke to it--softly, caressingly--then went over and picked it up.
+As he returned with it to his own chair it struggled violently as though
+to escape--a thing it had never done--growling the while with redoubled
+intensity.  And his own chair was nearer to that door.
+
+"Now Poogie, don't be a little fool," he apostrophised, holding it
+tighter.  But the tiny creature became almost frantic, striking its
+claws into his hand.  He released it, and it darted like lightning into
+the far corner of the room, where it crouched, still growling.
+
+For all his scepticism the man was conscious of a chill feeling in the
+region of the spine.  He reached out a hand for the square bottle.  The
+hand shook, and glass clinked against glass more than once as he filled
+out a liberal measure.  This he tossed off, and as he glanced again
+towards the centre of attention the glass fell from his hand on to the
+table.  _The door had opened_.
+
+Had opened--was opening.  As yet but a few inches of dense black slit,
+but it seemed to be gaining in width.  Mervyn gazed at it with dilated
+eyes, and as he did so he realised that the blood had receded from his
+face, leaving it cold--clammy.  What on earth--or beyond the earth--
+could have opened that door, secured as it was with a solid lock, the
+key of which was at that moment safe within one of the drawers of his
+writing table?  What on earth--or from beyond the earth--was he going to
+behold when that door should be opened to its full width?  Moved by a
+natural instinct of material defence, he backed towards the fireplace--
+still without taking his gaze from that slowly opening door--and bent
+down as though to seize the poker, but refrained, as the conviction
+flooded his mind that whatever it might be that he was about to meet
+certainly no material weapon would be available against it.  Again he
+found his voice.
+
+"Any one there?" he repeated, this time conscious of very much more than
+a suspicion of a quaver in his voice.
+
+As if in answer, the door noiselessly opened further.  The black gap now
+occupied half the doorway.  And then, while he was meditating a frantic
+rush forward to make one desperate effort at clearing up the mystery
+whatever it might be, something occurred to divert the awful tensity of
+apprehension which had about reached its climax.
+
+Through the doleful, long drawn howling of the winter wind and the
+rattle of sleet, came a cry.  A cry--ever so faint--distant--but just
+audible; a cry, as of distress, of utter, dire, and hopeless extremity--
+and it came from without.  And it was clearly and unmistakably human.
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE CRY FROM THE ICE.
+
+Every nerve rigid and tense Mervyn listened again.  Yes--it was
+repeated.  It echoed forth more distinctly now upon the dismal night,
+and it came from far up the great pond above.  Quickly he rose and threw
+on a warm cloak, and as quickly reached the front door, turned the key,
+and went out.  Somebody was in imminent peril--and then he remembered.
+The ice!
+
+He sprang up the path stairway which led to the sluice, and even as he
+did so the thought flashed through his mind that he had been on the eve
+of falling asleep in his chair when the phenomenon of the door handle
+had befallen to start him wide awake.  No more thought however did he
+give to this, as he reached the level of the sluice and looked out.
+
+The long triangle of the pond narrowing away between its overhanging
+woods, shone in the moonlight a gleaming sheet of ice, whose silver
+surface the drive of sleet was already whitening, and the firs in the
+dark woods which flowed down the banks were scintillating with
+hoarfrost.  Now again, from far up that long gleaming triangle, came the
+raucous, agonised appeal for aid, this time quite distinctly audible.
+
+"Some one's got stuck there in the ice," said Mervyn to himself.  "But
+what the devil is he doing there at this time of night?  Some poacher I
+suppose.  Well, poaching isn't a capital crime."  And raising his voice
+he answered the shout with a vigorous and reassuring halloo.
+
+The sleet had suddenly ceased, and the clouds parting somewhat, showed
+glimpses of a rushing moon.  Far up the frozen surface a dark
+interruption was just discernible.  Here it was that the ice had parted,
+and from here now came a responsive, but weakening shout of hopeless
+human extremity.
+
+"Keep up--keep up," bellowed Mervyn through his hands.  "I'm coming."
+
+He did not stop to think, he did his thinking while he moved.  He went
+quickly down the sluice path to his house, all superstitious midnight
+imaginings thrown to the winds.  To have started straight for the spot
+would have been to render no earthly service to the submerged man.  He
+would have been powerless for anything save to stand on the bank and
+encourage him drowning, wherefore the additional few minutes sacrificed
+to returning to the house and procuring a ladder might mean the
+difference in any case between life and death.
+
+The ladder was not found quite so easily as he had reckoned on, and when
+found, it proved a trifle heavier than he had expected.  In spite of the
+biting cold he was streaming with perspiration by the time he had
+dragged it up the steep path to the level of the sluice again, and by
+the time he had brought it to the gate which opened into the path
+through the wood which skirted the length of the long triangle of ice he
+was wondering if he could get any further with it.  But he sent forth a
+loud, encouraging shout, and without waiting for an answer, held on his
+way.
+
+Fortunately every inch of the latter was known to him, and shafts of
+moonlight, darting through the leafless wood aided him appreciably.
+Still the way seemed interminable, and his progress, weighted as it was,
+was perforce slow.  He knew exactly where to find the spot, and, lo--
+there it was.
+
+"Are you there?" he cried, parting some elder stems, to reach the edge,
+and thrusting out the ladder along the smooth, shining surface.  No
+answer came, but in the glint of moonlight he could see the shattered,
+heaving ice slabs, and wedged in between these, supported by both arms
+extended, he made out the head and shoulders of a man.
+
+The latter, obviously, was not more than half conscious, indeed it was
+little short of a miracle that he had not, in a state of relaxed
+muscular power, lost all hold and slid down to his frozen death in the
+black water.  Obviously, too, he was in a state of collapse, and
+incapable of helping himself.  The helping would all devolve upon his
+would-be rescuer.  The latter, in cold blood, would not in the least
+have relished the job.
+
+It is curious how the glow of a life-saving attempt will warm the
+coldest blood.  John Seward Mervyn was a complete and genuine cynic; yet
+to effect the rescue of this totally unknown stranger, and that at great
+peril to himself, here in the biting freezing midnight, seemed to him at
+that moment the one thing worth living for.
+
+At great peril to himself.  Yes, for he knew the water here to be a
+matter of four fathoms in depth--it might as well have been four hundred
+for the result would be the same.  It was likely enough that in
+attempting single-handed to get the stranger out he would share the
+stranger's fate.
+
+The ice cracked and bent as he pushed out the ladder along its surface;
+and cautiously, and lying flat in order to distribute his weight, made
+his way along it.  Then it broke, with a glass-like splintering, and
+jets of water spurted through.  Then the moon was again obscured, and a
+wild drive of sleet whirled down.
+
+"Here, buck up, man, and lay hold of the ladder," he panted, having
+attained within grasp of his objective.  The latter, whose staring eyes
+and blue lips showed the very last stage of exhaustion, made a wild
+attempt to comply, but his hand just missed its grasp, and the
+supporting ice slabs, loosened by the effort, would have let him through
+and in another moment would have closed over his head, when his wrist
+was seized in a tolerably firm grip.
+
+"Now--you're all right," gasped Mervyn.  "Grab hold with the other hand,
+and work your way along the rungs of the ladder.  Come on.  Buck up."
+
+The nearly drowned, and wholly frozen man seemed to understand, for
+although powerless for speech he did just what he was told.  There was a
+mingling of splashing and glassy splintering as the ice gave way beneath
+this double weight, but Mervyn's head was clear, and he distributed his
+own weight while piloting the other along the half submerged ladder.  At
+last slowly and laboriously, foot by foot, they regained the bank.
+
+"Here.  You get outside a great toothful of this," said Mervyn,
+producing the square whisky bottle which he had shoved hastily into his
+side pocket with an eye to just such a contingency, and had hurriedly
+deposited under a tree, when starting to venture upon the ice.  "Then
+we'll sprint as hard as we can for my diggings.  Do as I say," he added,
+sharply, as the other hesitated.  "It may mean the difference between
+life and death."
+
+The stranger, who had seemed to hesitate, now obeyed, and took a liberal
+pull at the potent spirit.  His rescuer followed his example.
+
+"Here, take another pull," urged the latter.  "Nothing like it, on top
+of a freezing soak.  Go ahead.  It can't hurt you under the
+circumstances."
+
+The stranger complied, and the effect was nearly instantaneous.  His
+chattering teeth were stilled, and the awful numbness that held his
+frame, relaxed, as the generous warmth of the spirit ran through his
+veins.  Still he did not speak.  Mervyn eyed him critically.
+
+"Come along," he said.  "My crib's just handy.  Sooner we get there the
+better, for I'm in as risky a state as you are.  Man, but I'm just
+steaming with perspiration, and a chill upon that on an icy night like
+this--at my age--no thank you!  Here--I'll give you an arm.  You must be
+clean played out."
+
+"I am," said the other, speaking for the first time.  But that was all
+he said.  No words of thanks, of explanation.  Mervyn passed a tolerably
+strong arm through that of his guest, and piloted him along the path
+beneath the trees, athwart whose frosted boughs the moon was networking
+in fitful strands of light.  The ladder he did not trouble his head
+further about.  It would be there in the morning.  Two owls, floating
+over the tree-tops, hooted sepulchrally but melodiously to each other.
+
+"That's how I heard them when I was in there.  They sounded like the
+voices of devils."
+
+Mervyn looked at the speaker curiously.  They had nearly gained the gate
+which opened out of the sombre woods on to the sluice.  The voice was
+rather deep, not unpleasing, but strained.  Lord! what if a touch of
+brain fever followed on the strain of the long immersion?  What on earth
+was he going to do with a raving delirious man, in his lonely, haunted
+abode? thought Mervyn.
+
+"Oh, that's how they struck you!" he answered, bluffly.  "No `devil'
+about them.  They're jolly beggars and I like to hear them.  I dare say,
+though, when you're hanging on for dear life in a freezing ice hole at
+midnight anything strikes you as all distorted--eh?  Well, here we are--
+that's my crib.  Hold up, go easy down this path.  It's really a flight
+of steps, you know.  By the way, as you see, I'm yards below the level
+of the pond.  If that sluice were to give way it'd sweep me and my shack
+to Kingdom Come before you could say knife.  I shouldn't like to say how
+many million gallons of water there are in that pond.  It's about half a
+mile long, and fills what is really the bottom of a valley, so you can
+imagine it's astonishingly deep."
+
+Thus chatting, he had piloted the man he had rescued safely down the
+staircase-like path and had gained the front door, which had been left
+half open in his hurried exit.  The lamp in the inner room was still
+burning, and into this he led the stranger.
+
+"Now, peel off all your wet clothes," he went on.  "This is the only
+decent fire in the house--the one in my bedroom has burnt low.  But--
+lose no time about it.  I'll get you a couple of rough towels for a
+glowing rub down--then you'll be none the worse."
+
+Mervyn stirred up the fire and piled on it several great billets.  In a
+moment they were roaring up the chimney.  But as he did so his glance
+quickly sought the mysterious door in the shadowy corner.  It was tight
+shut--moreover the long loop handle was in its normal position--at the
+horizontal.
+
+"I must have been dreaming," he said to himself, as he went upstairs to
+rummage out the towels aforesaid, and anything else that his new-found
+guest would be likely to need.  "And yet--if that devilish rum optical
+delusion hadn't come off--why I should have dozed on comfortably, and
+never have heard that chump's shout for help.  Well I've read of that
+sort of thing, but here's a first-class case in point."
+
+But at this decision his meditations stopped short, and that
+uncomfortably.  For the dread legends that hung around his lonely abode
+invariably had it that any manifestations within the same boded ill--
+were productive of ill--to the witness or witnesses thereof; certainly
+not good, to any living soul.  Yet this manifestation--if manifestation
+it were--had been directly instrumental in the saving of a human life.
+And with this came another uncomfortable reflection--to wit, the proverb
+that if you save anybody's life, he--or she--is bound to do you an
+injury.
+
+"All bosh," he decided, next minute, as he proceeded to get out a suit
+of clothes, in fact a complete outfit, for his guest.  Both were tall
+men, and much of the same build.  The things would fit admirably.  But
+this sudden acquisition of human companionship had made all the
+difference in Mervyn.  An imaginative man when alone, he was as
+hard-headed and matter of fact as could be in the society of his
+fellows.  He did not disguise from himself that the society of this one,
+whoever he might be, had come right opportunely just now.
+
+"Here you are," he cried, flinging the bundle of things down on the
+table.  "Get into these while I go and rummage out some supper.  You can
+do with some I expect after your `dip.'  But I warn you it's all cold,
+and there's no kitchen fire.  There isn't a soul on the premises but
+myself."
+
+The stranger protested that he really required nothing.  His voice was
+rather a pleasing one, with ever so slight a foreign intonation and
+accent.  He had a well-shaped head, straight features, and a short dark
+beard trimmed to a point.  On the whole, rather a striking looking man.
+
+While he was changing Mervyn made several expeditions to the back
+premises, and by the time these were completed the table looked alluring
+by reason of the adornment of a cold silverside, half a Stilton cheese--
+and the usual appurtenances thereto.
+
+"Rough and ready," declared Mervyn, "but all good of its kind.  I
+thought we could dispense with laying a cloth."
+
+The other bowed a smiling assent.  If his dark eyes flashed round the
+room in a quick appraising glance when his host was not, looking he
+evinced no appreciable curiosity otherwise, either by look or speech.
+The latter, for his part, was equally contained.  He detested being
+cross-questioned himself, consequently forebore, as second nature, to
+subject other people to that process.  If his guest chose to volunteer
+information about himself he would do so, if not--well, he needn't.
+
+A renewed whirl of dismal wind round the gables of the house, and a fine
+clatter of sleet against the windowpanes as they began their meal.  The
+stranger looked up.
+
+"I am fortunate indeed," he said, "to have fallen upon such hospitality
+as yours to-night, Mr--?"
+
+"Mervyn," supplied his host.  But hardly had he uttered his own name,
+than a very strange and unaccountable misgiving struck root within his
+mind.  Was it some long-forgotten brain wave that suggested to him that
+he had seen this man somewhere or other before--and that under
+circumstances which would in no way render it desirable that he should
+see him again?  Yet, like a long-forgotten dream which locates us in
+similar place or circumstances, it was an impression to vanish as
+completely and as bafflingly as recalled.
+
+"Hark!  That is not the wind," went on the stranger, looking up.
+
+"No, it isn't," said Mervyn, on whose ears the sound of a scratching on
+the windowpane and a plaintive little cry at the same time struck.
+
+He raised the sash, admitting a whirl of icy sleet, also the little
+black kitten, its fur plentifully powdered with the white particles.  It
+had slipped out of the door when he had started upon his rescue quest,
+and he had been too much occupied with this and the sequel to give it
+another thought just then.
+
+"Why, Poogie, you little fool, what did you want to leave a snug fire
+for at all on a night like this?" he apostrophised as the tiny creature
+sprang lightly to his shoulder, and sat there purring and rubbing its
+head against his cheek.  He sat down with it at the table, and began
+feeding it with scraps from his plate.  The stranger looked on with a
+slightly amused smile.
+
+"I see you are a lover of cats, Mr Mervyn," he remarked.
+
+"Why, rather.  They're such jolly, chummy little beasts.  Look at this
+one," holding it up.  "Isn't it a picture, with its little tufted ears
+and round, woolly face?"
+
+But somehow the object of this eulogy did not seem appreciative.  It
+struggled, and half struck its claws into its owner's hand, which held
+it up under the armpits.  But its said owner realised that its
+resentment was not directed upon him.  It was viewing the stranger with
+much the same manifestations of disapproval and distrust as when gazing
+at the weirdly opening door, earlier in the night.  And to its owner was
+borne in the consciousness that it had never displayed hostility towards
+anybody before--stranger or not.  This, however, he kept to himself.  He
+replaced the kitten on his lap, but even then it seemed restive and
+uneasy.
+
+"Are you fond of dogs too?" said the other.  "I suppose you are, but I
+didn't see or hear one when we came in."
+
+"Yes.  But I haven't got one just now.  The fact is this is a difficult
+place to keep a dog in.  They get roaming off into the coverts and get
+trapped or shot.  The last one I had disappeared--suddenly."
+
+There was a curious hesitation about this explanation.  Perhaps the
+stranger noticed it--perhaps not.
+
+"Now we'll have a smoke," said Mervyn, when they had finished, producing
+a cigar box.  "These are pretty well matured--Unless you'd prefer to
+turn in?"
+
+But the other declared he preferred nothing of the kind.  The comfort of
+this delightful room after the experience he had gone through was
+idyllic.  So Mervyn, by no means averse to this opportunity of
+conviviality so unexpectedly thrown in his way, fell in, and for upwards
+of an hour they sat on, before the blazing roaring log-fire, chatting
+easily, but always on indifferent subjects.  And all the time the
+stranger, while an ideal conversationalist, had vouchsafed no
+information about himself--not even as to his name.
+
+But when bedtime came he flatly and absolutely refused to avail himself
+of his host's bedroom.  He could not think of entailing that
+inconvenience, he declared.  Here was a roomy and comfortable couch, and
+a blazing fire.  A couple of pillows and a blanket was all he needed.
+And Mervyn perforce had to acquiesce.  The latter smiled queerly to
+himself at his own thoughts while doing so.  If the mysterious one were
+a burglar--only he did not look like it--why the most professional of
+burglars would hardly burgle a man who had just pulled him out of the
+jaws of death, and--more potent argument still perhaps to the hardened
+cynic--here was nothing worth burgling.
+
+But--when he was in his own room, and was disposing himself comfortably
+to sleep, with the little black kitten as usual curled up on his feet
+outside the counterpane, he reflected complacently that the door of his
+room owned a very strong lock, and that a Browning pistol reposed beside
+his watch under his pillow.
+
+But these precautions--especially in this instance--had nothing to do
+with burglars or burgling.
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+THE HOUSE BY THE POND.
+
+Heath Hover was a long, two-storeyed house built in the shape of the
+letter E with the centre bar left out.  Nobody knew exactly how it had
+ever come to be built at all.  The property on which it stood had
+changed hands several times right up to date, and tradition on the
+subject was obscure.  It could never have been intended for a farmstead,
+if only that it was situated right in the middle of woods, nor were
+there any traces of yard or outbuildings in the very limited and sloping
+space immediately behind it.  Some were of opinion that it had been
+built as a dower house to one or other of the succeeding owners of
+Sotherby Hall, others that it had been a separate demesne altogether.
+
+As we have said, it stood low--the chimneys being below the level of the
+sluice which regulated the custody of the great mass of water pent
+within the long triangular pond which was the scene of the midnight
+incident.  It was situated at the open end of the V formed by this and
+by a sweep of oakwoods on either side, flowing down to the water's edge.
+In summer it was a delightfully picturesque and inviting retreat,
+nestling in the heart of its sylvan surroundings, and never failed to
+catch the attention of the users of the not very good public road which
+ran along the sluice, whether motorists or cycle riders.  In the darker
+months, when the cloud-murk hung grey and gloomy, and no sound broke the
+awful stillness of the moist air but that of the dripping woods, why
+then the impression conveyed to the onlookers was dismal and desolate to
+the last degree.  Then it seemed to live up to its sinister reputation,
+for in the opinion of the countryside Heath Hover was a very badly
+haunted house indeed.
+
+Its present occupant awoke the next morning later than usual, and
+feeling by no means best pleased with himself and the world at large.
+To begin with he had passed a bad night.  Whether it was owing to the
+excitement of the strange midnight adventure which might so easily have
+culminated in tragedy, or that he had been wrought up by the weird
+phenomenon of the opening door--which, try as he would, he could not
+altogether persuade himself was a sheer optical delusion--certain it was
+that hour followed upon hour before sleep would come.  When it did it
+brought with it strange dreams, or rather imaginings.  Once he could
+have sworn that his own bedroom door was opening, then that the
+mysterious stranger whom he had so opportunely rescued, was standing by
+his bedside, bending over him with stealthy enquiring gaze; and his
+fingers had closed round the butt of the deadly weapon which reposed
+beneath his pillow.  But no; there was nothing.  The moon tempered the
+darkness of the room sufficiently to render visible anything moving
+within the same.  Still, when he did doze off there was always that
+haunting apprehension of some impending peril and something which he had
+thought buried, and which had suddenly started to life to dog him down
+and threaten him in this out-of-the-world retreat.  And it, somehow or
+other, was closely connected with his unexpected guest, sleeping
+peacefully in the room below.
+
+Stay.  As to the latter, was he sleeping so peacefully?  Moved by an
+unaccountable impulse Mervyn decided that he would make sure of that,
+and was in the act of rising with that intent when a sudden wake of
+drowsiness swept over him, and he fell back and slept hard until
+morning.
+
+The late sun was just rising, a red ball above the tree-tops.  The
+ground lay shrouded in whiteness, and the dark firs and naked oak boughs
+were picked out in snow patterns, and the window panes were crusted with
+the delicate lacework of a hard frost.  Mervyn shivered, and wondered
+apprehensively if he had caught cold in his undertaking of the night.
+He dressed quickly and went downstairs.
+
+	He opened the door noiselessly and looked in.  The room was in
+semi-darkness, for the blinds were still down.  His guest was still
+asleep apparently, for there on the couch he lay, the rug drawn over his
+head.  Noiselessly still, Mervyn closed the door, and went out.  Then,
+through the back kitchen--for he would not open the front door lest the
+grating of the bolts should disturb the sleeper--he passed into the open
+air.
+
+The exhilaration of it in a measure braced him.  The sun, mounting
+higher and higher, had emerged from the red ball stage into radiating
+beams, which touched the frosty particles on ground and tree alike into
+myriads of faceted diamonds.  Mechanically he mounted the staircase-like
+path which led up to the sluice.  The ice lay, a pure white triangle,
+narrowing away to the distantly converging woods; the break, now frozen
+over and newly coated with snow, hardly showing.  But to this he took
+his way.
+
+Heavens! it was a mystery the man had escaped the frozen death--a marvel
+that he himself should have been aroused just in the very nick of time
+to rescue him--he now told himself standing on the bank and
+contemplating the spot in broad daylight.  The ladder lay where it had
+been left, but now frozen fast into the ice.  It resisted his efforts to
+move it.  Well, it could stay where it was for the present.  When old
+Joe turned up--by the way, the old rascal was late this morning--they
+would be able to move it between them, and the ice was thicker for the
+night's frost, and would bear easily.
+
+He retraced his steps along the woodland path.  The leaves crackled
+crisply under his tread, and hungry blackbirds shot out swiftly from the
+hollies, uttering alarmed cachinnations.  A little red squirrel clawed
+itself up a tree bole, and squatting in a fork chirked angrily and
+impudently at him from its place of safety.  But as he walked, he was
+puzzling hard over the strange and sinister impression which the advent
+of his unknown guest had instilled within his mind.  In the cheery and
+bracing morning light and air, this seemed to strike him as sheer fancy,
+sheer unreasonable imagining.  The man was probably quite all right; his
+appearance and manner were certainly not unprepossessing.  He would
+persuade him to stay on a few days and relieve his loneliness.  Why not?
+He was becoming altogether too self-centred, as he had told himself the
+night before.
+
+Thus musing he gained the sluice and looked down at his dwelling.  The
+blinds of the living-room were still down.  Clearly his guest was
+"taking it out," and small blame to him, after his experiences of the
+night before.  At the bottom of the stair path, the unit previously
+referred to as old Joe came round the end of the house.
+
+Old Joe, surnamed Sayers, was his outdoor male factotum--gardener--
+though there wasn't much of a garden--make-himself-generally-useful, and
+so on.  Old Judy--otherwise Christian-named Judith--was his indoor and
+female factotum; cook, general-do-everything there was to be done.  Joe
+Sayers was an ancient rustic, normally towards crisp surliness inclined,
+except when full of extra ale--and Joe could carry a great deal of extra
+ale--and then he would wax confidential, not to say friendly.  On him
+his master now opened.
+
+"Hard morning, Joe?"
+
+"Sure-ly," came the laconic assent.
+
+"Is the gentleman in the sitting-room awake yet?"
+
+"Gemmun in settin' room?  I see nought o' he."
+
+"Well, the blinds are still down.  I thought Judy might have disturbed
+him, not knowing he was here."
+
+"She's t'whoam.  Got roomatics.  Tarr'ble hard marnin' t'is."
+
+This ancient couple only gave their services during the hours of
+daylight; no consideration on earth would have availed to keep them
+within the precincts of Heath Hover during those of darkness.  They
+inhabited one of the labourers' cottages referred to on the other side
+of the wooded hill and half a mile distant by road.
+
+"Can't she come to-day then, Joe?"
+
+"Not to-day," was the answer, with a very decided shake of the head.
+"May-be not to-marrer neither."
+
+Mervyn felt vexed.  How could he ask the stranger to prolong his stay
+when there was nobody on the premises to so much as boil a potato.  And
+he had rather reckoned that the other would prolong his stay.  In fact
+he wanted him to, and that, paradoxically, on all fours with that vague,
+undefinable instinct of apprehension which had been upon him during
+those sleepless night hours.
+
+"Look up the pond, Joe," he said.  "See that break in the ice, away
+there, by the two hanging ash trees.  Well, I got him out of there in
+the middle of the night.  I had to lug the ladder along to do it--we'll
+have to haul it back again presently, by the way.  He'd have been
+drowned but for it."
+
+"That he would, sure-ly."  Then the intense rustic suspicion of
+everything and everybody unknown asserted itself--"What be he a doing
+there--on the ice--middle of the night?  Poachin' may be?"  Mervyn
+laughed.
+
+"No--no.  He's no poacher whatever he is?"
+
+"And what might he be?  Tell me that," and the old countryman's little
+eyes blinked with satisfaction over what he considered his own
+shrewdness.
+
+"Don't know, I didn't ask him and he hasn't told me--yet.  It's a bad
+habit to get into--asking people questions about themselves and their
+private affairs, Joe.  It's a thing I don't do."
+
+The ancient slowly shook his head--pityingly, contemptuously.  He
+thought his master little removed from a fool.
+
+"Folks as gets on the ice, middle of Plane Pond--middle of the night,
+and don't say nothin' as to how they gets there and what they be after,
+bean't up to no good.  That's what _I_ say, muster."  And the speaker
+nodded profoundly.
+
+"You're a rare clever 'un, Joe," and Mervyn laughed banteringly.  "Now
+there'd be no great difficulty in any one, especially a stranger, losing
+his way in country like this, and that in the teeth of a howling sleet
+storm.  Taking a short cut, you know, and thinking to cross the ice
+instead of taking all the way round?  That needn't prove he was up to no
+good.  Eh?"
+
+But to this the old fellow condescended no reply.  He didn't take kindly
+to banter, slow witted people don't as a rule.  He spat on his palms,
+picked up the handles of the barrow he had come to fetch and moved off
+with it.  His master followed him, chatting desultorily.  Three or four
+pigs in a stye grunted shrilly as the human clement suggested morning
+aliment.  To this was added the cacklings and flutterings of the
+occupants of a fowl roost, expectant of like solid advantage.
+
+"Mus' Reynolds he bin around sure-ly," chuckled old Joe, looking down on
+the numerous pad marks of a fox indented in the fresh snow.  "Well,
+well, that there wire cageing's too tough for his milk teeth.  He'll ha'
+gone away wi' an empty belly I rackon."
+
+"That reminds me, Joe, that I could peck a bit myself," laughed Mervyn,
+turning towards the house.  It was getting quite late too, he decided,
+looking at his watch.  It would do no harm now to awaken his guest.
+
+He passed in through the back, listened a moment, then softly turned the
+handle of the living-room door.  The room was still in semi-darkness.
+On the couch lay the long, shadowy figure of the stranger.
+
+"Feel like turning out?" said Mervyn genially, but not in so loud a tone
+as to startle the other.  But no answer came.  Then stepping to the
+window, he raised the blind.
+
+The room was now flooded with light--the light of a radiant, cloudless,
+frosty winter day.  Still the recumbent form never moved.  Bending over
+it Mervyn dropped a hand on one shoulder.  But--still no response.
+
+With a quick, strange impulse that accelerated his own heartbeats he
+turned down the blanket and rug, which had been drawn over the head of
+the sleeper.  The latter had removed his coat and waistcoat, otherwise
+he was fully dressed.  But his face wore a half-startled, half-puzzled
+expression, and the lips were slightly parted--and then, bending down
+for a closer glance, Mervyn's countenance became if possible more
+white--certainly more ghastly--than the one lying there beneath his
+gaze, as well it might.
+
+For his unknown and unexpected guest, the man whom he had rescued from
+the frozen death in the black midnight depths of Plane Pond, was now
+lying there in front of him stone dead.
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+THE PENTACLE.
+
+Yes--stone dead.  There could be no possible mistake about it.  Mervyn
+touched the face.  It was icy cold.  But how on earth could this have
+befallen?  The man had seemed as well as any one could be when he had
+bidden him good-night and retired to his own room.  Certainly he had
+appeared none the worse for his immersion.  Quite himself after his
+hearty supper and generous liquid refreshment, he had sat and chatted
+and smoked in the enjoyment of perfect comfort for an hour or so.  The
+room was still warm, the ashes of the glowing fire not yet dead in the
+grate.  Heavens, what a thing to happen!  Well, it had happened, and the
+next thing was to send Joe with the pony and cart into Clancehurst--
+incidentally five miles distant--for a doctor.
+
+To that end he moved towards the door.  But before he reached it
+something caused him to turn.  Ever so faint a sound had fallen upon his
+ear.  Something had fallen--had fallen from the couch where the dead man
+lay--had fallen with ever so faint a clink.  It lay on the ground--a
+small object--and it shone.  He picked it up--and then as he stood there
+in the winter sunlight holding it in his fingers, John Seward Mervyn
+felt the hair upon him rise, and his flesh creep, and his face grow
+rather more ghastly and livid than that of the dead man lying there.
+For one dazed moment he stood gazing at the thing, then went over to the
+mantelpiece and dropped it into one of the queer old vases of quaint
+ware that stood thereon.
+
+"Good God!" he ejaculated.  "That--and now!"
+
+Outside he could hear the movements of his old retainer.  The latter had
+come into the kitchen, which adjoined this room, and could be heard
+fussing about and grumbling in very audible tones.
+
+"Why, what be it, Mus' Mervyn?" he exclaimed, startled at the perturbed
+apparition presented by his master.  "Look as if you'd seed a ghoast,
+sure-ly."
+
+"Well, I've seen the next thing to it, and that's a dead man," was the
+answer; and even amid his own perturbation, the speaker's sense of
+humour could not resist watching the effect the announcement was bound
+to have upon his ancient servitor.  But upon the mind of the stolid
+countryman the statement had just no effect at all.
+
+"Thass better," came the almost unconcerned reply.  "We'm all bound to
+die come the day; but them things what goes a-creepin' about at night,
+and what you can't always see, like in this 'ere 'ouse some nights--why
+they're a deal wuss.  And--who's the dead 'un, sir?"
+
+"Why the stranger I pulled out of the pond last night.  I left him
+comfortably tucked up on the couch in the room there, and now this
+morning he's as dead as a stone."
+
+"Talking o' he," said the countryman, whom the tragical side seemed to
+impress not in the least.  "I bin over to th' ice to get that ladder
+out, but it's that hard froze in, and that heavy I can't move it.
+You'll have to lend a hand, Muster."
+
+"And a devilish good thing you can't move it, Joe.  Why don't you see,
+lying just where it was it'll furnish a very important item of
+evidence."
+
+Now old Joe's stolidity did undergo a shock.  That last word conveyed an
+unpleasant suggestiveness of the atmosphere of courts, and of the
+atmosphere of courts the rustic mind stands in holy terror.
+
+"There'll be an inquess then, a crowner's inquess?" he said, with sudden
+awe.  "Lor sakes, Mus' Mervyn they can't bring in as _we_ had to do with
+it?"
+
+"Of course not, you old juggins.  But don't you see--the first thing
+they'll ask was how he got here and where he came from, and all that.
+Well, the position of the ladder--left exactly where it was, you
+understand--will confirm my explanation as to how he got here.  So it's
+devilish important that it should be left there.  Now, do you see?"
+
+Joe did see--and saw something else, or thought he did.  For now his
+little rustic cunning suggested to his little rustic mind that his
+master seemed rather over anxious to supply material for explanation.
+
+"Well, _I_ didn't see the gemmun," he answered, with a note of sulkiness
+underlying his tone.  "You'll mind I said so, Mus' Mervyn.  I didn't see
+he."
+
+"No, but you've got to now, so come along and look at him.  After that
+you must hitch up the pony and cart, and get along to Clancehurst, and
+tell Dr Sandys and the Police Inspector to come along here at once.
+And--look.  There are the strange gentleman's clothes, hanging up on
+that clothes-horse to dry.  I didn't change mine--wasn't wet enough."
+
+The clothes were hung in front of the kitchen fire now roaring and
+crackling merrily.  Joe eyed them with surly disgust.  He was becoming
+more and more imbued with a horrid suspicion that he would be involved
+in a charge of murdering the stranger--whom as yet he had not even
+seen--and in the result, duly hanged in Clancehurst gaol; incidentally
+that edifice was not of sufficient county importance to be used for
+capital executions, but of this, of course, he was ignorant.
+
+"Well, come along," said his master, turning.  But Joe didn't move.
+
+"Beggin' pardon, sur," he said, "but I'd rather not.  I said I didn't
+see he, and I don't want to now."
+
+"Oh, that's it is it?  Well you'd better.  They'll be asking all sorts
+of questions--and we are the only two people in the house.  You'll have
+to give evidence in any case, and you'll do it all the better for having
+seen all there is to be seen.  So, don't be a fool.  I only want you to
+see just how the man was when I found him.  Of course he won't be
+touched or moved or anything until the doctor comes."
+
+The old man gave way, although reluctantly, and followed his master into
+the chamber of death.
+
+"Who be he, sur, do you know?" he asked in lowered voice, as he stood
+gazing, awed, upon the still features.  "'E be a middlin' likely sort of
+gent, for sure."
+
+"I know just as much about him as you do, Joe.  As I told you this
+morning--I never ask people about themselves, and he didn't tell me
+anything.  No doubt he would have done so this morning, poor chap, but--
+there he is.  Well, get away now and fetch the doctor and the police,
+and the sooner we get all the bother over and done with the better."
+
+Mervyn went out, and superintended the harnessing of the pony, and saw
+his old retainer start.  It would take the latter well over the hour to
+jog along the hilly road, between Heath Hover and Clancehurst.
+
+"Straight on and straight back, Joe," was his parting injunction.  "You
+don't want to wet your whistle at any pubs this journey you know.  The
+business is too important.  And keep your tongue in your head about it,
+too.  The only people you've got to wag it to are the doctor and the
+inspector.  To any one else might make things unpleasant to you.  See?"
+
+Having, as he thought, effectually frightened his ancient servitor into
+discretion, and duly seen him start, Mervyn went back to the house, but
+did not enter.  Instead, he took his way up to the sluice and stood
+gazing out over the ice-bound pond.  There was nothing to be done until
+the representatives of medicine and the law should arrive, and meanwhile
+he felt a sort of disinclination to enter the house.  But for its rather
+thick coating of snow he would have put on his skates and amused himself
+upon the said ice, cutting a few figures.  Then he remembered he had had
+no breakfast, and suddenly felt the want of it.
+
+Accordingly he descended the path, and entering began to get out the
+requisite materials.  He was accustomed largely to doing for himself, so
+in a trice he had brewed his tea in the kitchen and got out other things
+needed.  But some of the said other things were in the living-room, left
+there from the night before.  He did not care to breakfast there with
+the dead man lying on the couch in the same room.
+
+The latter seemed unusually, supernaturally still.  He glanced at the
+couch.  It was just as he had left it.  There was nothing particularly
+repellant in the dead man's aspect.  On the whole it was rather
+peaceful--still, he preferred to have his breakfast somewhere else.  And
+then, while collecting what he required, his thoughts went again to the
+thing he had deposited within the vase on the mantelpiece.
+
+This he now extracted.  Had there been any one to witness the process,
+they would have seen that it was effected with extraordinary care.  For
+instance, he did not touch the object, he turned it out upon the table,
+and when he moved it at all it was with a bit of stick which he took
+from the remains of what had been used to make the fire with.  Yet it
+was a harmless looking thing enough--a small, shining disk not more than
+an inch and a half in diameter, and it had five points like those of a
+star.
+
+What an extraordinary thing was that which had happened, he said to
+himself.  The omen of the door handle and the open door; and
+involuntarily now he glanced at the latter.  But it was fast shut, and
+the handle at its usual angle.  It had been the means of saving the
+stranger's life--for what a very short time, as events had proved--and
+he remembered how he had marvelled that contrary to all report the
+manifestation had been effected in bringing any _good_ to anybody.  Well
+the "good" had not been effectual enough to last, so that far the
+grimness of the tradition did not belie itself.  It was indeed
+extraordinary, and here in the broad daylight he could afford to
+contemplate it from a purely speculative point of view.  Yet as he
+looked more and more at the little disk a good deal of an uneasy
+fascination was upon him, and well it might be--none knew this better
+than himself.
+
+Then he did a strange thing.  He went out of the room, returning
+immediately wearing a thick pair of fur-lined gloves.  He took up the
+trinket, even then holding it gingerly.  He looked round for something
+to wrap it in, then thought better of it.  He rose, and carried the
+thing out, holding it behind him, and ascended again to the sluice.
+There was a small hole in the ice, where the overflow ran out over an
+iron door.  That would do.  No, it would not.  He paused--just in time,
+as he realised he had been on the point of making a most fatal mistake.
+
+He looked around, not furtively, not pointedly, just casually.  Not a
+soul was in sight, but he knew, none better, that it does not follow
+that because you cannot see a soul therefore not a soul can see you.  A
+cloud of blue titmice was twittering in a leafless alder, glancing from
+twig to twig.  Overhead a little red kestrel was hovering against the
+cloudless blue of the dazzling winter sky, and two squirrels gambolled
+and chirked among the feathering boughs of a dark yew tree which still
+had a few berries left.  Blackbirds clucked and flickered over the ice
+surface.  All Nature was joyous and at peace this bracing, invigorating
+winter morning, and within the room down yonder the dead man lay.
+
+Mervyn turned to regain the house.  The little black kitten, its bushy
+tail erect, came bounding up the path stairway to meet him, but he did
+not take it up, as it rubbed against his legs, purring a greeting.
+
+Halfway down the earth stairway a large stone lay, partly embedded in
+the soil.  Mervyn bent down as though to tie up his bootlace.  When he
+rose again that stone was the custodian of something.  It was the
+tombstone of the strange small disk he had held in his hand.
+
+Mervyn went into the kitchen, where he had left his breakfast all ready;
+and then he did another strange thing.  He took off the big fur gloves
+he had been wearing, and put both well to the back of the red, roaring,
+kitchen fire.  In an instant they were absorbed in the furnace-like
+heat.  Then he sat down to his breakfast, but, in view of the
+proceedings just detailed he thought he could in a degree estimate the
+sensations of a murderer, who has carefully and effectually--as he
+thinks--disposed of every item of evidence.
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+THE ENQUIRY.
+
+About lunch-time a smart dogcart came bowling along the snow covered
+road, and from it descended the doctor and the police inspector,
+likewise a constable: old Joe, with his slower conveyance, had been left
+to follow on.  Dr Sandys was a good representative of the prosperous
+G.P. in practice in a prosperous market town; genial, hearty, and
+prepared to be surprised at nothing which came in his way
+professionally.  The inspector likewise was a good type of his kind;
+tall, alert, rather soldierly in countenance and bearing.
+
+"Well, Mr Mervyn, this is a strange sort of happening, isn't it?" began
+the former.  "However, the first thing to do is to get to work."
+
+"Will you look at the--er--the body first, or the locality?" said
+Mervyn.
+
+"The locality?"
+
+"Yes.  I mean where I first picked him up.  I suppose Joe told you all
+about it, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes, he told us all about it--after a fashion," said the inspector with
+a slight smile.  "But I needn't remind you Mr Mervyn, what sort of a
+`telling all about it,' one would be likely to get from a man of old
+Joe's stamp.  So the first thing to do is for you to give us your
+account of what happened," and the speaker's hand instinctively dived
+for his notebook.
+
+"I rather think I had better inspect the `subject' the first thing,
+Nashby," struck in the doctor.
+
+"Of course.  This way."
+
+Mervyn showed them into the room and raised the blinds, which he had
+lowered again after the first discovery.  The constable was left in
+charge of the dogcart.  The doctor bent over the dead man and proceeded
+to make his first examination.  The bystanders could not but notice that
+he looked more than a little puzzled.
+
+"We shall have to strip him," he said, looking up.  This was done, the
+police inspector giving his aid.  Mervyn stood and looked on.
+
+The body was that of a well-knit, well-proportioned man, probably on the
+right side of forty.
+
+"No sign of injury, none whatever," pronounced the doctor, "and his
+heart is as sound as a bell.  Here is something, but it seems of no
+importance.  At one time or other, he was addicted to the drug habit,"
+pointing to the left arm, which he had raised.  "But--not lately."
+
+"Not lately?" echoed the inspector, whose notebook was in full swing.
+"Now to be precise, doctor, up to how lately should you say?"
+
+"It's impossible to be precise," was the answer, "if by that you mean
+exactly how many years ago he discontinued the habit--and from all
+appearances he needn't have been very greatly addicted to it even then.
+Certainly not less than five or six years ago, possibly longer; indeed,
+I should say longer."
+
+The inspector nodded, and for a minute or two his stylo was very busy
+indeed.  The puzzled frown on the surgeon's face grew deeper and deeper,
+and well it might.  Here was a strong, well-built, healthy man in the
+prime of life, dying in his sleep, and no sign whatever to guide Science
+towards the discovery of the cause.
+
+"We shall have to make an exhaustive postmortem," said the doctor at
+last, covering the dead man again, "and to this end I must take steps
+for having the body removed to Clancehurst, for I propose to call in
+first-rate expert assistance."
+
+"Very good, sir," assented the inspector briskly, relieved that he was
+now going to get his own innings, and also all his professional keenness
+to the fore over the prospect of being put in charge of a very
+out-of-the-way case.  "And now, with Mr Mervyn's permission, I will
+take his statement as to the whole of last night's occurrence."
+
+"You shall have it to the full," was the answer.  "But first of all had
+you not better go through the poor chap's clothes--they are hanging up
+in the kitchen where I put them to dry, those he has on now are mine,
+which I rigged him out with as a change.  Needless to say I haven't
+touched a thing of his, pending your arrival.  You may find some clue to
+identification there."
+
+"We'll do so at once," said the police officer, and they adjourned
+forthwith to the kitchen.
+
+The clothes were hanging where they had been placed the night before,
+and were now quite dry.  But mystery seemed likely to be piled on
+mystery.  Except some sovereigns and silver change amounting to
+something over five pounds in all, the pockets were absolutely empty.
+Not a scrap of paper, no card-case or pocket-book, not even a purse.
+Besides the money, an old Waterbury watch, attached to a leather guard,
+made up the entire contents.
+
+Furthermore the clothes themselves afforded no clue.  The buttons were
+plain horn ones, and bore the name of no tailor, nor was there any shop
+mark upon any article of hosiery; and now the police inspector warmed to
+his work, for he could see that all such indications had been carefully
+and deliberately removed.  But by whom, and with what object?  That was
+his business to find out.
+
+"Now Mr Mervyn, if you please.  I should like your statement."
+
+"Certainly.  Let's go back into the other room and I'll get you some
+foolscap to take it down on.  It'll ease your notebook--eh, inspector?"
+
+Mervyn told his story, plainly and concisely, as we know it--not
+omitting any detail.  Any detail?  Yes.  He omitted just one--the
+finding of the metal disk.  But at that part of the narrative which
+related to the apparition--or hallucination--of the opening door, both
+his auditors looked up keenly.  For they were acquainted with the weird
+legends which popular belief hung around Heath Hover.
+
+"As sure as I sit here," went on the narrator, "that manifestation--
+delusion, if you like--was the means of saving the man's life, for if I
+hadn't seen it I should have finished dropping off to sleep in my chair,
+and had I done so, why he might have shouted till doomsday without my
+hearing him.  However, it didn't seem much good, as things turned out."
+
+The inspector laid down his stylo.
+
+"Now, Mr Mervyn, if you will be so good.  We will examine that door,
+and what lies beyond it."
+
+"Certainly," and Mervyn, unlocking a drawer in his writing table
+produced a long, brown, heavy key.
+
+"See," he went on, "it was under this pile of papers.  I always keep it
+there.  Yet that door opened of itself, just as I have described.  I'd
+swear to that as positively as I could swear to anything in my life."
+
+"You have strong nerves, Mr Mervyn," said the inspector, a thought
+drily, perhaps, as he took the key which the other tendered to him.
+
+The lock, though a trifle stiff, turned without difficulty.  A black gap
+yawned in front, and a close yet chilly, fungus-laden air greeted their
+faces.
+
+"Hold hard now till I get some candles," went on Mervyn.  In a moment
+these were obtained and lighted, each carrying one.  "I'd better lead,"
+he appended, perhaps anticipating the thought that flitted through the
+mind of the police officer.  It would be so easy otherwise to spring
+back, and locking the pair securely in that vault, thus obtain for
+himself a start of several hours.  Such things had happened.
+
+A good bit of a shiver ran through the trio as they descended into the
+dank mustiness of the vault.  The walls glistened with moisture, so did
+the stone floor.  But there was no break in the solid masonry, save for
+one hole, barely four inches across, which admitted air from the outside
+but no light.  The inspector made a minute and exhaustive examination of
+both walls and flooring, but there was no sign of either having been
+disturbed, perhaps for centuries.
+
+"My belief is that this place was nothing more than a common or homely
+wine cellar," said Mervyn, as having found nothing whatever to reward
+their investigation they took their way up the stone steps again.  "The
+fact of the existence of a disused empty vault like this under a house
+is enough to give rise to all sorts of weird beliefs centring round it.
+But yet--that door business of last night--well, if that was an optical
+delusion I'll never believe in my own eyesight again.  And now," as they
+regained the outer day, "before we start to look at the hole in the ice,
+how about a little something stimulating after your drive.  Eh?"
+
+The doctor was agreeable, in fact quite willing, but the cautious police
+officer declined.  Mervyn, seeing through this thought too, got out a
+new bottle with the seal intact, and drew the cork.  Likewise he placed
+an unbroken syphon on the table, perhaps rather ostentatiously.  While
+thus engaged, the pony-cart rumbled up, bringing the returning Joe.
+
+He, too, now the inspector desired to question.  Possibly because
+disregarding his master's parting injunction, the old rustic had been
+imbibing some Dutch courage in the shape of a couple of "goes" of square
+Hollands on the way back at the _Dog and Partridge_, the same number of
+miles distant upon the road, he was able to answer these questions in a
+straight and fairly lucid manner, though he would more than once
+revert--as his mind misgave him--to his stock declaration!  "I didn't
+see no strange gemmun 'ere last night.  You'll mind I said so, Mus'
+Mervyn.  I didn't see he."
+
+"Nobody said you did, Joe," reassured the inspector.  "You only saw him
+this morning, after he was dead."
+
+"That's Gawd's truth, I reckon, Mr Nashby, zur," was the fervent
+rejoinder.
+
+"One thing more, if you'll excuse me, Mr Mervyn," said Nashby.  "I'll
+just examine this room a little."
+
+He looked on the floor, under the couch, in cupboards, and drawers; not
+omitting the old vases of quaint ware that stood on the mantelpiece.
+The owner, watching with outward indifference, had his own thoughts.  So
+had the inspector.  Whoever had been the cause of this unknown
+stranger's death, it had been no one entering the house from outside,
+determined the latter.
+
+Then they adjourned to view the scene of the rescue.  Along the path
+through the wood Mervyn pointed out the footprints--half obliterated by
+subsequent snow--left by himself and the rescued stranger, likewise
+those quite fresh, made by himself and old Joe that morning on their
+respective and independent progresses to the spot.  Of these Nashby took
+careful measurements.
+
+"There you are," went on Mervyn, as they arrived at the place.  "You'll
+see the hole is newly frozen over, but the ladder's just where I left
+it.  The water's over twenty feet deep there, but what the deuce started
+the poor chap on the ice at all is what bangs me.  Seems to me we're up
+against a very tall thing in mysteries."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if we were, Mr Mervyn," rejoined the inspector,
+again rather drily.
+
+"Couldn't we trace his footmarks back?" suggested the doctor.  "It would
+show the direction he had come from, and then we could make enquiries.
+Eh, Nashby?"
+
+"The very thing I was going to do," answered the latter.
+
+But the plan, though good, was difficult of execution.  The footmarks
+were almost obliterated by the more recent snowfall, in places quite so.
+And they led from nowhere direct.  They zigzagged and twisted, as
+though their perpetrator were wandering at random and round and round,
+then lost themselves altogether in a sort of small ravine.  But the very
+incoherency of their course suggested a reason for the stranger plunging
+into the peril he had done.  Clearly he had got lost in the thick woods
+and had welcomed this long, broad stretch of open, and apparently strong
+ice, as a way out.
+
+"Now I would suggest an adjournment for lunch," said Mervyn.  "We can
+take up the trail afterwards where we left it."
+
+"That's not half a bad idea," assented the doctor heartily.  "Thanks
+very much, Mr Mervyn.  I'd been about a bit before I started for here,
+and after a drive through this invigorating air, it seems a long while
+ago since breakfast time."
+
+Inspector Nashby raised no objection.  A stalwart police officer, even
+though on an interesting case, and prospectively a case for advancement,
+is not proof against the pangs of deferred appetite on a crisp, keen,
+frosty day.  But even while discussing good cheer in an impromptu way in
+Mervyn's kitchen--for they left the living-room in silent possession of
+the dead--Nashby kept his eyes about him and his perceptions at full
+cock.  For Nashby had his theories already forming.  The doctor as yet
+had formed none.
+
+While thus engaged, they missed the fact that the sun-bright day had
+overclouded.  They were awakened to it, however, by the discovery that
+it had begun to snow again.  More than begun indeed, for the snow was
+coming down, not merely in flakes, but almost in slabs.  A little more
+of it and they would hardly be able to get back to Clancehurst.  The
+Inspector jumped to his feet.
+
+"Heavens!" he ejaculated, going to the window.  "Why, this'll cover up
+all and any footprints there may be to find beyond where we left off."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if it did.  Well, it can't be helped," said Mervyn
+coolly.  He had by now quite got behind the policeman's suspicions, and
+was taking rather a half-hearted delight in teasing that worthy.  "Have
+another whisky and soda, inspector?"
+
+"Thanks, no.  I'll go and take up the track where we left it."
+
+"If you'll take my advice you won't," said Mervyn.  "In fact you'll get
+back to Clancehurst as soon as possible, and come back here when all's
+clear again.  Why, you've seen how even a moderate snowdrift can pile
+up.  If you get caught in the middle of this deluge of it, right out in
+the thick of the woods, why I shouldn't wonder if you're as stiff as our
+poor friend there, before many hours are gone.  What do you say,
+doctor?"
+
+"What do I say?  Why that I can't afford to get snowed up right away in
+the country for days.  What price my practice?  So if it's all the same
+to you, Mr Mervyn, I'll ask you to have my cart hitched up and start
+before it gets worse."
+
+Nashby had not waited to hear this decision.  He had gone outside to see
+if it really was impracticable to pursue the search.  But even before he
+had reached the top of the path which led to the sluice, the rush of the
+blinding cold flakes into his eyes drove him back.
+
+"No, it'd be quite useless," he said, by no means pleased.  "Couldn't do
+anything in the teeth of this.  But it won't be dead against us going
+back, rather behind us, that's one thing."
+
+So they started, the inspector very dissatisfied and very suspicious.
+He questioned the doctor all the way along the road, under difficulties
+certainly, because of the blinding sheets of snow which drove in upon
+them, rendering breathing--let alone conversation--difficult--as to
+Mervyn, his circumstances and his antecedents--above all, his
+antecedents.  But on this point the doctor was able to give no
+information--only that he knew no more on the subject than did his
+questioner.
+
+And Mervyn was left alone with the dead, in solitary, haunted Heath
+Hover--yet not quite alone, for the police constable was left too; and
+perhaps he was not sorry for the man's companionship.  For the snow
+whirled down in masses for the best part of the night, blocking the road
+in huge drifts, and the wind howled dirgefully round the gables of the
+house, where lay the living and the man who had come there to meet his
+strange, mysterious death.
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+"THE KEY OF THE STREET."
+
+"For the third and last time, I say--will you hand me that letter or
+will you not?"
+
+"No, I will not."  And the speaker's lips tightened, and her blue eyes
+met the angry red brown ones calm and full, and the coronal of golden
+hair shone upon a very erect head indeed.
+
+The parties to this dialogue were a girl and a woman, the latter
+middle-aged, not to say elderly.  She had a hooked, commandeering nose
+and a hard mouth turning down at the corners.  Now they were turning
+down very much indeed.  It may be hardly necessary to explain that these
+two occupied the position of employer and employed.
+
+"Now mark my words, Miss Seward," went on the first speaker, fast
+getting into the tremulous stage of white anger.  "I'll give you just
+one more chance, and only one.  Hand me over that letter, or--out of my
+house you go.  Without references mind--and this very day at that.
+Now--take your choice."
+
+There was some excuse for the irritation displayed by the older woman,
+in that she had surprised the other in the act of reading a letter--a
+fairly closely written one too, and that in the handwriting of her only
+son, a young subaltern not long gazetted, and only recently gone out to
+India.  She had suspected something between them prior to his departure;
+and this girl was a mere paid teacher of French and music to her own
+two--then in the "flapper" stage.  As a matter of fact there had been,
+but it was all on one side--on that of the boy.
+
+"There's really nothing in it," was the answer, "I didn't want him to
+write to me, and told him so more than once.  But as he has, well I
+can't show private correspondence to a third person, even though it be
+the correspondent's mother."
+
+In hard reality the speaker was more than half inclined to comply--more
+to put an end to the whole bother than anything.  But there were two
+obstacles in the way of such a safe and easy course; first her own
+pride, of which she had all her share--in spite of her dependent
+position--not that she considered it a dependent one as long as she gave
+_quid pro quo_, and who shall say that she was altogether wrong?  And
+Mrs Carstairs had put on a tone that was raspingly dictatorial and
+commandeering.  The second lay in the fact that the writer had
+particularly requested that all knowledge of her having received the
+letter should be withheld from his mother.  Equally, as a matter of
+fact, even as she had said--there was nothing in it.  It was a very
+harmless effusion.  It contained vehement declarations of devotion, but
+such were merely unsophisticated and doglike.  When at home the boy had
+fallen violently in love with her, but though kind to him in a sisterly
+way, she had not reciprocated, and while sorry for him had pointed out
+plainly to him more than once that this was so.  She was older than him
+too, and could not look upon him from the point of view he wanted--and
+this she also pointed out to him plainly.
+
+In view of all this it seemed rather hard lines now that his mother
+should swoop down upon her in this fashion as though she were a mere
+designing intriguing adventuress, instead of being, as it happened, of
+considerably older descent than this family of two generations of worthy
+and successful manufacturers, among whom perforce for the time being,
+she was earning her daily bread, and perhaps it was a little of this
+sense of contrast that raised that gold-crowned, well-poised,
+thoroughbred head somewhat higher in the air during the gathering storm
+of the interview.  But here were two angry women, rapidly becoming more
+angry still--the one steadfastly refusing what the other as equally
+steadfastly imagined she had every right in the world to demand.  What
+sort of outcome was this likely to yield?
+
+The elder woman's normally rubicund cheeks had now gone nearly white.
+
+"So that's your last word?" she panted.
+
+"I'm afraid so."
+
+"Then go.  D'you hear.  Go upstairs and pack, and leave this house at
+once.  That is the return I get for my kindness--my charity--in ever
+taking you into it at all."
+
+Melian Mervyn Seward threw back her head, and straightened herself still
+more at the ugly word.
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs Carstairs," she said, a small red circle coming into
+each of her likewise paled cheeks, "but I think you used the wrong word.
+You have had your full money value from me, fair work for fair wage.
+So I don't see where the word `charity' comes in at all."
+
+The other could only sputter, she was simply speechless with wrath.  The
+girl went on:
+
+"Not only that, but I am entitled to some notice.  I refuse to be thrown
+out in the street without any at all.  Remember, I have to make my own
+arrangements as to my next plans.  So I will take your notice now if you
+like."
+
+You see there was the element of a capable business woman about this
+thoroughbred, self possessed orphan girl, who had hardly a friend in the
+world and that not capable of being of any use to her in a stress like
+the present.  She, calm, because with the power to control her white
+anger, held the other at a disadvantage, who had not.
+
+"Oh, well," the latter managed to stutter.  "I will pay you your month's
+wages, and--"
+
+"Quarter's," corrected the girl quietly.  "I am not a servant, let me
+remind you, but teacher of French and music to your children.  Therefore
+I am entitled to a quarter's notice."
+
+"Why, this is blackmailing," blared the woman furiously.  "Sheer
+blackmailing."
+
+"Don't keep on using ugly words.  You know it's nothing of the kind--
+only a sheer matter of business."  And then somehow the mere mention of
+the word seemed to be effectual in calming the speaker's restrained
+math.  "I have got to take care of myself, you know.  There's no one
+else in this wide world to do it for me.  So I must have my contract
+carried out, or take steps to enforce it if necessary.  There is no
+blackmailing in that."
+
+"Oh, that's a threat, is it?"
+
+"Not a bit.  I am merely putting the situation before you from both
+sides."
+
+"You shall have your quarter, then," said the other, after a moment of
+silence.  "But--leave this house by to-night."
+
+"If I can, I will," answered the girl.  "But I must first make sure that
+I have somewhere to go to.  So if you will kindly have a telegram
+dispatched for me, and the reply is satisfactory, I shall be prepared to
+do as you wish.  _If_ it is not, I fear I shall have to burden you until
+to-morrow morning."
+
+The other gasped in speechless amazement.  But she knew what was in the
+speaker's mind.  If the latter were to go out herself with the object of
+sending the telegram, who knew but that she might not find herself
+refused re-admission?  In justice it is only fair to say that such an
+extreme measure would not have been adopted.  Still, as the girl had
+said, she had got to take care of herself.
+
+"Very well, write your telegram then," she snapped, and rustled out.
+
+Melian went over to a writing table, found a telegraph form, and having
+filled it in, rang the bell and dispatched it.  Then she went up to her
+room.
+
+So she had lost her means of livelihood.  It was not a very congenial
+means of livelihood, still it might have been worse--infinitely worse--
+and this she candidly acknowledged.  There was little sympathy between
+herself and her employer.  The latter had treated her with a certain
+courtesy, but she was a hard, dictatorial, narrow minded type of woman,
+and utterly intolerant of contradiction in any shape or form.  As for
+the nominal head of the house he was a mere nonentity, a mere cipher.
+Outside its limits he was a fairly prosperous stockbroker, and only
+returned home to dine and sleep, and seldom speak.  Her charges were not
+particularly interesting or engaging children; empty-headed, selfish,
+and thoroughly spoilt.  Still she managed to get on with them--and what
+was more--to get them on.  And now she had to leave; to lose her means
+of livelihood for the time being--and Heaven only knew where and how she
+was going to obtain another--and all because a silly boy now at the
+other end of the world had chosen to fall in love with her at this.
+
+Yet as she caught her three parts length reflection in the glass, Melian
+Mervyn Seward would have been no woman had she not known that upon that
+account the boy was not so silly after all.  For it framed a really
+exquisite picture--that of a beautifully proportioned figure, neither
+tall nor short, in fact exactly the right height for a woman.  The
+well-poised head, gleaming gold under the electric light was set upon a
+full, rounded throat.  The blue eyes, beneath their well marked brows
+were steadfast, and full of character, and even more so if possible the
+set of the mouth.  But the contour of cheeks and chin was perfect, and
+now that the reaction after the strife had brought an unusual glow of
+colour to the former the face was absolutely lovely.  Here was a girl
+who well and tastefully dressed would have created more than a sensation
+in any big ballroom, and now she stood there realising more and more how
+utterly helpless and alone in the world she was, with her only means of
+livelihood taken from her, and with very precarious chances of finding
+another.
+
+"Little fool!" she muttered with a stamp of the foot against the fender
+bar; the exclamation not being directed against herself but against her
+absent adorer.  "Little fool!  I expect he'll feel pretty sick when he
+hears what he's been the means of doing--if he ever does hear.  Still--
+he couldn't help it, I suppose."
+
+Looking up, the blue eyes suddenly filled, then overflowed, for they had
+encountered a portrait of her dead father.  She caught up the frame from
+the mantelpiece, and pressed her red warm lips passionately against the
+cold glass, murmuring words of love and tenderness.  Then she sank into
+a low chair and sobbed unrestrainedly--it may be that the reaction of
+the nervous system after her late passage of arms had something to do
+with the breakdown.  There came a knock at the door.  Instantly she
+sprang to her feet, dashing the tears away.  Heavens! they would be
+attributed to grief and fear over her dismissal.  That would not do--no
+not for anything.  It was difficult, however, to regain her self command
+at a brace of seconds' notice, and the maid who now entered with a
+telegram, subsequently and as a matter of course did set them down to
+that very cause.
+
+The wire was a reply from her friend, a girl who made a living as a
+typist, and hardly comes within the scope of our story except in so far
+that now she wired that she could take Melian into her modest quarters
+for a night or two while the latter "looked about her."  This was so far
+satisfactory.  Melian wrote out another telegram in reply, saying she
+was coming on in a couple of hours, and gave it to the maid, which
+message of course supplied that young person with something to talk
+about, and conjecture about, below stairs.  Then she set to work to pack
+in earnest.
+
+Mrs Carstairs was not quite happy in her mind, while sitting in her
+morning-room waiting for her discharged _employee_ to come and take her
+leave--and her salary.  She was not a bad hearted woman _au fond_, only
+there were times when the "_fond_" took a good deal of getting at.  Now
+she had qualms.  Miss Seward had not been wrong in saying she had given
+her good money's worth.  She certainly had done that, and now the woman
+was already consumed with misgivings as to how she was going to supply
+her place.  But as Miss Seward entered, this misgiving merged into a
+feeling of vague self-gratulation that it had turned out for the best.
+The girl was looking lovely.  Quietly but tastefully dressed, her
+patrician blood and bearing was never so manifest.  She wore a large
+black hat--large without exaggeration--which framed and set off the
+beautiful refined face, and the velvety blue eyes.  No, assuredly she
+was too dangerously pretty to keep; otherwise there is no telling that
+she would not have climbed down even at the eleventh hour.
+
+"Here is your cheque, Miss Seward," she said, "and there is the receipt
+form."  Then having seen this duly signed, she added stiffly--"And now,
+good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs Carstairs.  I'll just repeat to you.  There was no harm
+whatever in that letter.  I did not feel justified in showing you--only
+on principle, mind.  Good-bye, children."
+
+For the two girls had just come in.  There was, as we said, nothing
+engaging about them.  They were gawky plain girls, sallow faced and
+inclined to be hook-nosed too, with a skimpy black pigtail hanging down
+each of their backs.  They showed no more feeling on parting with Melian
+than if she were just getting up from an afternoon call.  They each
+stuck a limp bony paw into her palm, and there was an end of it.
+
+She went downstairs.  Her luggage--by no means the traditional, and
+feminine, "mountain of luggage"--was being stowed in and on a cab.  A
+door on the ground floor opened into the hall.  Within this stood the--
+nominal--master of the house.
+
+"I hear you're leaving us, Miss Seward.  I'm sorry," he began rather
+jerkily.  "Will you kindly step in here for a moment?"
+
+Melian wondered, but complied.  Seen in the full light, he was a quiet
+looking, keen faced man, keen as to the upper part of his face--that
+represented his moderate success on the Stock Exchange--falling away in
+the lower--that represented his subsidiary position as merely nominal
+master in his own house.
+
+"I'm sorry," he repeated.  "You're very young, and I understand, alone
+in the world.  This fuss, whatever it's about, is clean outside my
+department, but remember, if ever you want a friend--either to speak a
+good word for you--or what not--remember me.  Good-bye, child."
+
+She flashed a bright smile at him as she took the hand which jerkily
+shot forth at her.  Then she went out.
+
+"By gad, she's lovely!" exclaimed Carstairs, staring after her, "and the
+very perfection of a lady too.  What a fool Adelina is to have got rid
+of one like that."
+
+And Adelina, who from the upper landing was privily assisting
+auricularly at this scene, was for once, inclined to agree with the
+submissive one.  Certainly it would not be easy to find an adequate
+substitute.
+
+"Still--she's too pretty," she told herself with something of a sigh.
+"Too pretty, and--too proud.  Yes--far too proud."
+
+And this reflection seemed to carry something of consolation as her mind
+went back to that scene in the forenoon, and how the girl had
+uncompromisingly declined to capitulate, while she herself had come out
+of it with far from flying colours.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+INTERIM--"FLU."
+
+The Carstairs abode was a large, dull, ugly villa in a large, dull, ugly
+suburb--one of those depressing suburbs that is neither town nor country
+but has the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither.  But it
+was cheerfulness itself compared with the locality through which
+Melian's cab was now slowly jogging.  The squalor of the greasy streets;
+the dank, thick atmosphere; the hoarse, scarcely human yells and the
+incessant rumble and clatter attendant on that sort of locality are too
+well known to need any describing.
+
+Leaning back in the mouldy vehicle, she set her mind to go over the
+events of the last few hours.  Had she been ill advised, hasty--she
+asked herself?  Their behaviour at the very last had seemed to show they
+were not such ill-meaning people.  Yet, as she looked back she knew that
+relations between them had been getting more and more strained.  For
+some reason or other Mrs Carstairs had been growing more and more short
+in her manner towards her, and now she knew that reason.  The old woman
+had had her suspicions all along, but the discovery of the climax
+brought things to a head.  But the whole thing was ludicrous, and all
+about a little booby like that--Melian's lip curled as she thus rather
+unjustly characterised the distant cause of all the bother.
+
+The drive was long and the cab slow.  She had time to let her thoughts
+go further back from her present troubles--the future was not a welcome
+subject, looked at sitting alone there in that mouldy box on wheels, and
+in the dark at that.  Her earlier life had been a sufficiently happy
+one.  She had seen a great deal of the world and developed her artistic
+instincts.  Then had come losses; and speculations, instead of mending
+things, made them worse.  Her father was lacking in the business
+capacity, while her other parent was under the impression that one pound
+sterling was endowed with the purchasing power of three, and acted
+consistently upon that conviction.  So means dwindled till there was
+very little left.
+
+Things had reached this point when one day her father started off on a
+railway journey to a place some hours distant.  He was mysterious as to
+the object of it, but declared that they would none of them be the worse
+if it failed, whereas if it succeeded, they would be considerably the
+better.  He seemed in a hopeful mood, and in fairly good spirits, and
+when at the big, dingy terminus, where she was seeing him off, he handed
+her a couple of accident insurance tickets, which he had just purchased;
+he seemed fairly bubbling over with fun.
+
+"See these?" he had said.  "All right.  They cost a shilling apiece, and
+represent 1,000 pounds apiece if I'm--er--totally smashed up.  So, you
+see, I'm more valuable to you dead than alive.  I used to think it was
+the other way about.  But take care of them, I've signed them, and all,
+so it'd be quite safe.  Put them away carefully.  Two thousand pounds,
+remember."
+
+"I've a great mind to tear them across and throw them on to the line,"
+the girl had answered, looking at him with filling eyes and quivering
+lips.  But he laughed gaily.
+
+"Don't do that, little one.  They cover minor injuries too, only those
+mean less dibs.  You know.  So much a leg, so much an arm, so much a
+finger--and so on.  It's a rum world--and you never can tell.  So stick
+to those tickets till I come back.  Now, good-bye, my darling little
+one.  Here, let go--the train's moving, by George!"
+
+She was very nearly tightening her hold, so that it would be physically
+impossible for him to free himself until the train had gone, but she did
+not.  With eyes blinded with tears she waved to him from the platform as
+he leaned half out of the window watching to see the last of her, and he
+was gone.  Yet he would be back the day after to-morrow at the latest.
+She had often seen him off on such journeys before.
+
+"I _am_ a little fool," she said to herself as she walked away.
+
+About two hours later, when in the middle of its longest non-stop run,
+Marston Seward fell from the train.
+
+There were headlines in the evening paper posters, but somehow or other
+Melian did not notice these.  It was not until the next day, when they
+opened their morning paper, that the tragedy rose up and hit them
+between the eyes--name, description, everything, for by this time
+identification had been easily obtained.  Melian hardly knew how she
+lived through that stunning blow--perhaps because it was a stunning one.
+But the shock was too much for her mother--the shock only, for there
+was little if any affection between her and the dead man.  Brain fever
+supervened and she died.
+
+Her illness made an alarming inroad into the scanty resources remaining
+to them.  Hard material necessities had to be met.  Hitherto the girl
+had shrunk with shuddering horror from turning to account those fatal
+insurance tickets, the price of her father's blood.  She could not claim
+it.  Oh God! the thought of it?  But she might have spared herself any
+qualms on this head.  The railway company flatly and uncompromisingly
+repudiated all liability.  The insurance was against _accident_ not
+suicide.  They were in a position to prove, and to prove indisputably
+that for any one to have fallen from the particular coach of which
+Seward was an occupant, and that by accident, was a sheer impossibility.
+The door handles were all in good order; if anything, rather stiff to
+turn than otherwise.  They could prove too, that the said door handles
+were properly secured at the last station the train had passed through.
+And worst of all, they were in a position to produce a platform
+inspector who had passed the pair at the moment of the utterance of
+those fatal words: "You see, I'm more valuable to you dead than alive.
+I used to think it was the other way about."  The official had heard the
+words distinctly, and after the tragedy had himself voluntarily come
+forward with the information.  At the time they had struck him as
+uttered jokingly, but in the light of the subsequent event they took on
+a far different aspect.  In short, Seward had bungled the whole
+business.  He died as he had lived, and his last act was one of
+perfectly inexcusable bungle.  "More valuable to you dead than alive,"
+had been his words, and in the result his daughter was left alone in the
+world, as nearly as possible penniless.
+
+Alone!  Yes--for she had no relations, except one, away in India, and
+for certain reasons the last person on earth to whom she would apply
+under any circumstances whatever.  She had no real friends, only
+acquaintances who could be of no great service to her, but eventually,
+thanks to the inherent spirit and pluck which buoyed her up, she managed
+to find means of supporting herself.  And all this had befallen rather
+more than two years previously to when we first see her, being, more or
+less politely, shown the door at the Villa Carstairs.
+
+Now, shut up in the mouldy darkness of the slow, Jolting vehicle, it all
+came back to her again, and she had to hurriedly brush away the warm
+tears which the recollection--always vivid--had evoked, as the cab drew
+up with a jolt at her friend's lodgings.  But she met with what she most
+needed, a cordial welcome.  Even the cabman, a rubicund old fellow with
+a bulbous nose and a rumbling voice, forebore to claim so much as a
+penny over his legal fare when he caught a full view of her face under
+the street lamp, and a gratuity of threepence, smilingly tendered, was
+met by a hearty "Thankee kindly, missie."
+
+Cumnor Lodge, the Carstairs villa, though dull and heavy outside, within
+was characterised by a considerable degree of solid comfort.  But this
+narrow hallway and the nondescript combination of smells of
+sink-cum-cabbage, with a slatternly landlady and a still more slatternly
+servant, waiting to give a hand upstairs with the luggage as well as to
+satisfy a natural curiosity as to what the visitor would be like, struck
+her with a very real chill.  Would it be her lot to inhabit such a
+place, was the thought that instinctively shot through her mind?  But
+the impression was partly neutralised when she found herself within her
+friend's tiny but snug sitting-room, with its bright fire, and hissing
+kettle, and tea and its appurtenances all so dear to the feminine eye.
+Violet Clinock was a bright, pleasing type of girl, with dark hair, and
+honest grey eyes, not exactly pretty, but rather near being so.  But
+with all her natural cheerfulness, there was intertwined an impression
+of one who was perfectly well able to take care of herself.  In fact she
+rather prided herself upon this, and upon being an independent bachelor
+girl who could always make her own way.  She was a country parson's
+daughter--one of many--under which circumstances she flattered herself
+she had done the right thing in striking out on her own.
+
+"This shop's rather dingy in the daytime, dear," she explained as the
+two were seated comfortably in the really cosy little room, and the tea
+and muffins and other things dear to the feminine appetite were in full
+force.  "But I'm not much here in the daytime, and at night, once I get
+inside it doesn't matter.  The main thing is it's cheap--very.  Not
+nasty either, for I do every mortal thing for myself.  Heaven help me if
+I left it to anybody else.  Well, I've been saving up, with an eye to
+running a typing shop on my own.  It isn't my ambition to remain for
+ever in a position to take orders from other people, I can tell you.
+Well, and why did you leave your last crowd?  Had a row?"
+
+"Sort of.  It takes two to make a row, and there wasn't much of that on
+my side," answered Melian.  "I just let the old woman talk, but she
+didn't get what she wanted.  I got the key of the street instead--so,
+here I am.  By the way," she added, waxing grave.  "I don't know where
+I'm going to be.  That's a pair of shoes of another pattern."
+
+"Oh, with all your high accomplishments," laughed the other.  "Why any
+one would jump at you."
+
+"Would they?  They're welcome to skip, then.  But even `high
+accomplishments' are no good without references."
+
+"Without references?  But you can get--Oh, I see.  The old cat won't
+give you any."
+
+Melian nodded.
+
+"The beastly old cat!" pronounced Violet.  "She ought to be compelled
+to."
+
+"Well, she can't be, and that's all I've got to do with it.  So there
+you are."
+
+"Let's see.  You're no good at our job, are you, Melian?" said the
+other, drumming the tips of her fingers together meditatively.
+
+"Unfortunately I've never learned it."
+
+"That's a pity."  In her romantic little soul she was beginning to weave
+a web of destiny for Melian, and the meshes thereof were glittering.  A
+secretarial post in some flourishing office, and if her beautiful friend
+did not promptly enslave an opulent junior partner, why then it was her
+own fault.  But then, unfortunately, her said "beautiful friend" had
+never learned typing.
+
+They chatted on, about everything and nothing, and bedtime came.
+
+"I turn in early," explained Violet, "because I have to turn out early,
+and get to my job.  You'll have to turn in with me, dear, to-night at
+any rate.  To-morrow, if you want a room to yourself, I dare say Mrs
+Seals can fix you up.  But they're all rather kennels I'm afraid.  I've
+got the pick of the basket."
+
+"Don't you worry about me, Violet.  It's something to have some one to
+come to when you get the key of the street door given you, I can tell
+you," answered Melian, seriously.  And then they went to bed and talked
+each other to sleep.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+There followed then, sad, disappointing, heart weary days for poor
+Melian.  She answered advertisements in person, and by letter.  She went
+to all sorts of places, in and around London, in course of such answers.
+Sometimes she was sympathetically received, twice she was insulted, but
+that was where she found the dominant male had been advertiser under
+cover of what looked like one of her own sex.  But in the genuine cases
+disappointment awaited--and but that she was free from vanity or
+self-consciousness she might easily have read the real nature of the
+verdict--"Far too pretty."
+
+Oh, the weariness of those daily tramps, and bus and tram journeys,
+through more or less hideous, drab, depressing streets in the dull,
+deadly depressing winter murk invariably characteristic of London during
+the young end of the year!  Oh, the weight of it upon the mind, as she
+realised, instinctively, that it was not a case of try again, but that
+for some reason or other her case seemed utterly hopeless.  She put it
+to her friend.  But the latter, though she shrewdly suspected the
+reason, shrank from saying so.
+
+Of her, Melian saw little or nothing during the daytime, Violet Clinock
+was thorough, and stuck to her job, with an eye to material improvement.
+But in the evening they would foregather, and the daily tale of worn
+out disappointment would unfold itself, and after the wretched,
+soul-wearying effort of the day Melian could not but realise the warmth
+and comfort and companionship which it ended up with; and this in a
+measure heartened her for the next.
+
+She had taken a small bedroom at the top of the squalid house--a mere
+attic, but the two girls "chummed" together for the rest of their
+arrangements.  But a fortnight went by, then three weeks, and still with
+the same result.  Melian Seward was just where she was at the time of
+leaving Cumnor Lodge.  There seemed to be no room in the world for her.
+Her slender savings, in spite of every possible economy, were dwindling.
+When they had done dwindling--what then?
+
+And then the result of the cold, dank, and often wet, questings around
+after a means of livelihood, combined with lowness of spirits, and a
+sorely disturbed mind, came.  She was laid low with a bad bout of
+influenza.  The hydra-headed fiend was hard on the ramp, seeking whom he
+might devour, and finding it too in plenty.  And among his countless
+victims was Melian Mervyn Seward.
+
+And she could not afford to be ill; for is not illness a luxury for the
+rich?
+
+But through it all her friend tended her with wholehearted and loyal
+camaraderie.  Of course she suggested a doctor.
+
+"A doctor?  Heavens, Violet!  I can't afford such luxuries," Melian
+burst forth fiercely.  "The only thing I can afford is to die--and the
+sooner the better."  And then she became delirious, and imagined she was
+standing on the platform of the gloomy, dingy terminus, amid its
+vibration of hissing, shrieking engines, discussing those hateful,
+fateful railway insurance tickets with her dead father.  But whether she
+would have a doctor or not, Violet was determined she should, and sent
+for one accordingly.
+
+He, on arrival, looked grave.
+
+"Has she any relations, Miss Clinock?"
+
+"Oh, good Heavens!  You don't say it means that?"  And the business girl
+was startled for the moment out of her normal take-things-as-they-come
+attitude.
+
+"No, no, no.  But--they ought to know.  She's in a very low state, I'm
+bound to inform you.  There's something on her mind--something hard and
+heavy on her mind--and that's all against her--all against everything."
+
+"Lord!  I wish I knew what to do.  But she's very `close.'  Between
+ourselves, doctor--of course, strictly between ourselves--" The other
+nodded.  "I believe she has one or two.  But she must have quarrelled
+with them, or they with her, for if ever I got on to the subject she
+takes me up mighty sharp, I can tell you.  And I don't believe in
+forcing people's confidences or prying into their affairs."
+
+"No, no.  Of--course not.  Still, do all you can in that direction.  You
+may find opportunities, you know--or make them.  Good-evening, I am very
+busy just now, there's a record lot of `flu' about, as I dare say you
+know.  I'll look round in the morning."
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+VIOLET'S DISCOVERY.
+
+"In the morning," the doctor had said.  What a deal of difference those
+three words can cover.  In this instance Melian had passed a quiet
+night, thanks to his prescription, but was very down and listless.
+Violet Clinock had decided to take a day off on purpose to look after
+her, and with that intent had "expressed" a note down to her place of
+business to intimate that fact.  Now she sat at breakfast, alone, with
+the morning paper propped up against her coffee pot.
+
+As she read, a name caught her eye.  "Seward Mervyn."  She stared.
+"Seward Mervyn" again.  Yes it was.  And then running her glance down
+the paragraph and up again, she saw that it was headed: "Clancehurst--
+The Heath Hover Mystery."  Thus it ran:
+
+"The remains of the unidentified stranger, who met his death so
+mysteriously at Heath Hover, the residence of Mr Seward Mervyn, were
+buried yesterday afternoon in Clancehurst churchyard.  No friends or
+relatives were forthcoming, but Mr Mervyn, unwilling that one who had
+been a guest of his--though from first to last unknown to himself--
+should be buried by the parish, generously came forward, and together
+with Dr Sandys and a few other generous leading townspeople, raised
+sufficient to cover all expenses, and also attended the funeral.  Up
+till now no light whatever has been thrown upon this strange occurrence
+which has baffled alike all the researches of medical science and the
+exhaustive investigations of the police.  Inspector Nashby of
+Clancehurst, together with an official from Scotland Yard are in charge
+of the case from the latter point of view."
+
+Violet stared at the paragraph and read it through again.  Now it all
+came back.  She had read about it before, but it had not fixed itself
+upon her memory.  Even the name had failed to effect this then for she
+had not seen Melian for some time, and in the busy life she led, "out of
+sight out of mind" could not but hold good to a certain extent.  But now
+the name seized her attention at once.  "Seward Mervyn?"  And she knew
+that Melian's second name was Mervyn, Clearly this must be a relation.
+And the doctor had asked her about Melian's relations.
+
+She read no more of the paper.  Her shrewd, busy little brain was at
+work.  This must be a relation, probably an uncle or a cousin.  Clearly
+her duty was to communicate with him.  Clancehurst was only about an
+hour and a half from London.  The day was young--should she go down
+herself and interview him personally?  But against that she did not care
+to leave her friend alone at this stage.  Should she write?  Perhaps
+that would be the best course.  But she had better question Melian first
+as to her relative, while saying nothing about any intention on her part
+to communicate with him.  Having thus decided, she went up to her
+friend's room, taking the paper with her.
+
+Melian was awake, but drowsily so.  Her blue eyes were wide open, but
+had a pathetic and lack-lustre look, and her hair, partly loosened, made
+a tumbled halo of gold against the pillow.  Yes, she had slept well--she
+said--only rather wished she could go on sleeping for ever.
+
+"By the way," went on Violet, casually, after having talked a little
+about things in general.  "Have you got a relation named Seward Mervyn?"
+
+"Oh yes!  He's my uncle.  He's out in India."
+
+"Is he?  Well have you any other relation of the name?"
+
+"No.  Not that I know of.  In fact I can't have--or I should have known
+it."
+
+"Well then, this one isn't out in India at all.  He's in England, and
+not very far from London at that.  In fact, only about an hour and a
+half by rail, if as much."
+
+Melian stared, then raised herself on one elbow.
+
+"What on earth are you talking about, Violet?" she said.  "I tell you
+he's in India."
+
+"Well, people come back from India sometimes, don't they?"
+
+"Yes.  But I've no interest in this one, nor he in me.  He has never
+shown any at any rate.  I don't want him to either.  He wasn't at all
+nice to my father.  He disapproved of his sister marrying him, and, in
+fact, he disapproved of him entirely.  No.  I couldn't bring myself to
+be civil even if I were to see him."
+
+"Have you ever seen him?"
+
+"No."
+
+The word jerked out fiercely.  Violet Clinock could see that her friend
+was getting excited, and that was bad.
+
+"Then don't be in too great a hurry to pass judgment.  Life is--I'm not
+going to say, `too short,' as the silly old chestnut runs, when if
+anything it's long enough--but too busy, too hard, to keep grinding away
+at ancient grievances, even if they are not entirely or partly
+imaginary.  It's just possible that this relation of yours may have been
+a bit misunderstood.  Anyway give him the benefit of the doubt."
+
+"Where did you say he is?" said Melian listlessly.
+
+"Clancehurst--or near it, rather," glancing again at the newspaper.
+"Heath Hover, they call his place."
+
+"That sounds rather nice," murmured the invalid.
+
+"It's a jolly part of the country I can tell you," went on Violet,
+emphatically.  Her plot seemed somehow to look hopeful.  "I've been near
+that part, and I'd give something for a week or two down there now with
+my bike, even though it is winter.  The glow of the heather, and the
+green and gold of the waving woods is something to see, I tell you."
+
+"In winter?" smiled Melian artlessly.
+
+"No, you goose.  I'm talking about summer and autumn."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Shall I read you the paragraph?"
+
+"Yes, do."
+
+The other did so, and then went on to tell her all about the original
+mystery, which now came back to her memory.  Melian listened, and grew
+more and more interested.
+
+"It's funny how the thing should have escaped my attention," she said.
+"But I didn't see the papers regularly at the Carstairs'.  Sometimes a
+day or two would go by--or even longer."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Melian grew no better.  Violet could not stay in to look after her every
+day, for she was entirely dependent upon her work, and were she to lose
+this, why then they would both be in the same boat.  So during the day
+she was dependent on the slatternly landlady--who though well meaning
+and kind according to her lights, was yet slatternly, and very vulgar in
+her ideas.  So the girl would lie there by the hour, feeling too weak
+and listless even to read, with no more cheering a prospect to look out
+upon than a vista of black chimney stacks and chimney cowls, taking
+weird shapes against the grey murk of the London sky.  And what was
+there to cheer her?  Nothing.  Even when she did get well her small
+savings would have vanished, or dwindled to vanishing point, in the
+incidental expenses of her illness alone, apart from the liquidation of
+her medical attendant's claim.  The girl felt very wretched, very
+despairing, as she lay there day after day in her loneliness.  And in
+the evening when her friend returned and tried to cheer her, the process
+grew more and more difficult.
+
+"This won't do," said the doctor, one morning, coming into Violet's
+little sitting-room with a very grave face.  "Is there nowhere that Miss
+Seward could go to for a complete change of air and scene?"
+
+Violet shook her head sadly.  She thought of the dwindling purse, and of
+her friend's sinking despondency.  She thought also of her friend's
+pride.  And then an idea came to her.
+
+"There is only one thing I can think of, doctor," she said suddenly,
+"and even that may bring forth nothing.  But if I tell you, it is
+entirely in confidence you understand."
+
+"Why that of course," answered the doctor.  He was a youngish man, very
+hardworking, in a hard-worked and poorly paying practice, and like most
+members of his profession had more than an ordinary share of intelligent
+human sympathy.  He guessed pretty accurately at one of the causes for
+worry which kept back his patient upstairs--in fact the main cause--and
+had been puzzling how to hint, delicately, that so far as he was
+concerned, that cause need not count.
+
+Then Violet told him of the existence of Melian's unknown relative and
+how the girl refused to communicate with him, through some notion of--
+probably mistaken--pride.  At the mention of the name and locality Dr
+Barnes brightened up at once.
+
+"By George, so that's her relative!" he said.  "I should think I had
+heard of that case.  Why it was a puzzler--baffled all our people most
+effectually.  It isn't likely to be forgotten either in the profession.
+Here is a man who dies suddenly and mysteriously, and even our experts
+can find no definite cause of death.  But, there.  I'm talking `shop.'
+Let's get back to Miss Seward.  She ought certainly to make herself
+known to this relative of hers--he seems a kind sort of man if only by
+the way he has interested himself in the burial of this unknown
+stranger.  Her uncle too.  That's near enough.  Make her write to him.
+I tell you in all seriousness that she is getting into a very critical
+state.  The only thing for her is a thorough change of air and scene.
+You know what a hydra-headed beast `flu' is, and its Protean after
+effects.  Well, a splendid type of girl like Miss Seward is far too
+scarce to spare any effort to save from possible week of that sort.  You
+must make her write to him."
+
+"But if she won't?  She's got a pretty strong will of her own, I can
+tell you."
+
+The doctor looked at her for a moment in silence.  Then he said:
+
+"In that case write yourself."
+
+Violet clapped her hands.
+
+"Good--and good again?" she cried.  "Just the very thing I'd thought of
+doing, and now I've got your authority behind me, why, I will."
+
+Again the doctor looked at her in silence for a moment.  Then he said:
+
+"I will take upon myself to advise you further, Miss Clinock.  Do so at
+once, on your own responsibility.  Say nothing to our patient--and so
+spare her the worry of argument and counter-argument, which would be in
+the last degree bad for her at this stage.  She will thank you for it
+afterwards, believe me; and then, if the answer should not be
+satisfactory, which I can hardly think--she will be spared that
+additional disappointment too.  But I tell you, purely professionally,
+that a change to a quiet country place like Clancehurst, and its pure,
+splendid air, would be the saving of her.  Good-bye.  I needn't look
+round to-morrow unless you send for me."
+
+"I'll do it at once, this very night," answered Violet briskly.
+"Good-bye, doctor.  You have taken something of a weight off my mind."
+
+The next day Violet Clinock took "off," though not without some qualms
+of trepidation.  She had been taking several "off" of late, and her
+employers were getting a bit short.  They were rather "fed up" with her
+sick friend and the absences entailed, and half hinted that a typing
+secretary unburdened with sick friends was more in their line, and in
+fact plenty were there ready and waiting.  But Violet was shrewd enough
+to know her own value, which was really considerably beyond that of
+salary received.  However, she fingered the reins delicately.
+
+That day she devoted to Melian, and the general cheering of her up.  The
+next or the one after that, at the furthest, should bring a reply to her
+diplomatically, but at the same time very humanly, expressed missive to
+a perfect stranger.
+
+"You must buck up, Melian," she would say.  "Why, if the worst came to
+the worst didn't old Carstairs say that he would be a friend to you if
+ever you were in want of one?"
+
+"Pooh!  He didn't mean it.  It was only something to say--a sort of well
+rounded figure of speech to get rid of me comfortably," announced Melian
+cynically--her illness and growing straits had rendered her cynical.
+"And even if he did, that old cat of his would soon want to know the
+reason why, I can tell you."
+
+"I don't know.  Very likely she has come round, since she's had time to
+think things over."
+
+"Come round!  Let her come round--or square.  Turning one out like
+that--at an hour's notice and all about nothing.  They're a cad crowd
+anyhow, and as the old chestnut says--you can't look for anything from a
+pig but a grunt.  But even they may find their own turn come next.  Old
+Carstairs' job isn't such a cocksure business, but very much `up to-day
+down to-morrow.'  I've heard him say so himself many a time, and give
+instances of it too."
+
+"Well dear, it's a rum world, and to quote another moss-grown chestnut--
+you never know your luck.  Now I've got a notion things are going to
+turn for you, and in a little while you'll be all on the up grade."
+
+Melian did not answer.  Even the up grade indicated meant a dreary vista
+of unceasing drudgery, giving the best of her life--her young life--to
+the totally unappreciated service of other people, and that for a mere
+living wage.  Surely she was cut out for something rather different.
+But her friend would not allow her to get into a despondent vein.  She
+switched the topic of conversation off to other matters, and her efforts
+were rewarded, for the invalid forgot the standing woes and grievances,
+and being of an imaginative temperament, soon found herself talking
+brightly, and even laughing.  Decidedly here was a marked improvement,
+concluded the watcher, thankfully.
+
+In due course, and exactly to the time Violet had calculated, came a
+letter.  The girl's eyes brightened as they lit upon the Clancehurst
+postmark on the large square envelope, and she could only just restrain
+herself from rushing into her friend's room, after the early morning
+postal delivery.
+
+"Melian, here's a letter for you,"--throwing it down on the bed.
+
+"Letter?  What?  I've no one to get letters from--unless it's another
+from that silly little booby, Dicky Carstairs," she added bitterly.
+"Only, how should he write to me here?  Oh, I suppose it's only one of
+the deferred answers to one of my applications.  `Will write and let you
+know.'  You know the rigmarole--`Mrs Stick-in-the-mud is exceedingly
+sorry'--and all that sort of thing.  Well, let's see."
+
+The while Violet had been on tenter-hooks lest the other should spot the
+Clancehurst postmark, and perhaps decline, in her absurd pride, to open
+the letter at all.  But Melian tore open the envelope leisurely and
+listlessly, and then her brows contracted as she took in the contents of
+the large square sheet--and the excited watcher saw a flush of red
+suffuse the sweet, delicate face.  This was what she read.
+
+"Heath Hover, Near Clancehurst.
+
+"My dear Melian,--
+
+"I am deeply distressed, and more than glad at what I hear about you;
+the first that you have been so ill, the second that it has given me the
+opportunity of coming into touch with you at all.  I had no idea where
+you were--I have not been very long back from India, remember--and
+neither you nor anybody else has ever communicated with me, or given me
+any information at all with regard to you.  But I am only too thankful
+that now--though late in the day--I have such.
+
+"Now I am losing no time in writing to say that you must pack up and
+come to me here, at once, and make this your home for as long as ever
+you like to make it so.  I am getting an old man and am quite alone, so
+it may be dull for you, but at present, anyhow, a whiff of pure, fresh,
+country air, on top of that beastly London fog in winter, may well set
+you up after your illness.  Although winter, you will enjoy it as a
+contrast to town smoke, I should think.  So wire or write the train I
+shall expect you by at Clancehurst, and I will be there to meet you.
+There are reasons why I cannot leave home at present, so am unable to
+come up to town personally to fetch you, as I should otherwise have been
+glad to do.
+
+"Believe me, my dear child,--
+
+"Your affectionate uncle,--
+
+"John Seward Mervyn.
+
+"PS.  Illness involves expense.  You will accept a trifle towards such."
+
+Two five pound notes remained in the envelope.  The long white fingers
+took them out, and even in the act the girl appreciated the delicacy
+which should have placed them there until the letter should first have
+been read.  She handed the letter to Violet, while the tears began to
+well forth from her wearied blue eyes.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the latter, having read it.  "This uncle of yours is a
+brick, Melian--a real hard, cemented brick."  Then growing serious.
+"Such a sweet letter too.  There, I told you better times were coming,
+didn't I?"
+
+"You had no business to have written to him.  I never told you you
+might," was the weakly reproachful reply.
+
+And then the two girls, the ill one and the well--the ill one because
+she was ill--the well one out of sympathy, had a good cry together, and
+there was much hugging and they were happy.
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE ARRIVAL.
+
+John Seward Mervyn was seated within the same armchair in which we first
+saw him gazing at the mysterious and shadowy door in the corner--but now
+it was the middle of a brilliant winter forenoon--and he was occupied in
+the reperusal of two letters, not bearing even date, for one was that of
+Violet Clinock informing him of his niece's existence and illness, while
+the other was from his niece herself.
+
+Comparing this with the former epistle he smiled to himself.  Violet's
+glowing description of her friend, and her multifold attractions, both
+physical and mental, amused him.  He was gratified, too, that his niece
+should prove neither unattractive nor a fool.  Melian's missive, on the
+other hand, struck him as rather strained and stiff as to style, but
+then, she had been ill, and likewise was he not a perfect stranger to
+her?
+
+How would the experiment work, he was speculating?  If satisfactorily,
+why should she not make her home with him altogether?  He was not so
+young as he used to be, but there was plenty of "go" in him yet, and he
+was not deficient in ideas; perhaps she might not find him quite such an
+old bore as she probably expected to find.  He gathered from her
+friend's letter that she had gone through no particularly glowing times,
+nor were there any likely to be in store for her; and life here,
+quietly, and at any rate for a while, might be the very thing to make
+the girl happy, dull under ordinary circumstances as such life might be.
+
+There was one point, however, as to which he was not without secret
+misgiving.  By this time no doubt was left in his own mind as to there
+being something about this house that was not about other houses; and
+which, for want of a better word, he described to himself as an
+"influence."  He had experienced it himself, when sitting alone of an
+evening, and even in broad daylight.  Sounds, too, shadowy, vague, and
+explicable by no natural or material cause--again as to such there could
+be no two opinions.  And this girl who was coming had been ill, and
+naturally her nerves would not be at their best.  It would be ghastly if
+she were to undergo the shock of some sudden fright.
+
+With this in view he himself occupied the room he had destined for her,
+until she should arrive.  But absolutely nothing untoward occurred to
+disturb him, either waking or sleeping.  Further, he got hold of old Joe
+and his ancient spouse, and charged them by every consideration likely
+to carry weight, that they were on no account--by word, nod or wink--to
+let fall the slightest hint to the visitor as to there being any stories
+afloat about Heath Hover at all.
+
+"I'll not nabble, b'lieve me, Mus' Mervyn," old Judy had said, clicking
+her Punch-like profile together, "I don't b'lieve in nabbling on things
+like they.  Folkses finds 'em out soon enough--"
+
+"If there's anything to be found," supplied the master.  "Here there
+isn't, you understand, Judy?"  And the old woman declared that she did,
+and Joe emphasised the statement by a brace of emphatic nods.
+
+The fact was that strict fealty to their employer came entirely within
+this old couple's interests, for he remunerated them at rather more than
+double the rate of earnings they could have obtained from any other
+source or sources.  John Seward Mervyn was shrewd, though poor.  When he
+had to lay out money he did so to the best of advantage, and in the
+proper quarter.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The mysterious end of the mysterious stranger had been very much of a
+nine days' wonder.  It had puzzled the police, and, more important
+still, perhaps, it had puzzled the doctors.  There had been an inquest
+of course, and a great deal of disagreement among doctors.  Mervyn's
+evidence was perfectly straight and to the point; given so
+straightforwardly too, that none who heard entertained the slightest
+doubt as to its thorough exhaustiveness; and his narrative of the rescue
+of the stranger in the freezing midnight, only for the latter to meet
+his death so mysteriously but a few hours later, created something of a
+sensation.  But the official mind listened to it all with some reserve
+and the official mind, as represented by Inspector Nashby and the expert
+from Scotland Yard, resolved to keep a continuous but furtive eye--and
+that for sometime to come--upon the goings out and comings in of Mr
+John Seward Mervyn.
+
+Old Joe Sayers, too, gave his evidence with straightforwardness, but
+that he was constantly harking back, with the suspicious persistency of
+the countryman, to the fact that he had never seen the deceased when
+alive.  Likewise when he began to "feel his feet," he volunteered again
+the opinion which we heard him enunciate to his master, that "folks as
+gets on the ice, middle of Plane Pond, middle of the night, etc, bean't
+up to no good;" a remark whose _naivete_ drew forth a great laugh, and
+likewise an admonition from the coroner that the witness should not
+volunteer opinions containing an imputation of motive until he was asked
+for it--which admonition for the most part was sheer Sanscrit to old
+Joe.
+
+Not the least strange side of the investigation lay in the fact that no
+amount of enquiry was able to elicit any information whatever as to the
+previous movements of the stranger.  The heavy snowfall which had
+supervened upon the arrival of the doctor and the police inspector at
+Heath Hover had lasted a couple of days, and had utterly obliterated all
+and every trace.  Further, none of the dwellers in the neighbourhood--
+whether in village or scattered cottages--could be found to speak as to
+having noticed any stranger at all, let alone one bearing the slightest
+resemblance to the circulated descriptions.  The man might have appeared
+out of nowhere.  So the verdict was an open one, and the man was buried
+at the expense of Mervyn and a few more who came forward with
+subscriptions toward that end--as we have said.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Mervyn sat scanning the two letters, as though to make the utmost he
+could out of every word and line of each.  In his heart of hearts he
+felt rather impatient.  His was not such an eventful life but that the
+impending arrival of a girl relative--and that an attractive one, he had
+reason to believe--should not inspire some modicum of pleasurable
+anticipation.  What would she be like, all round, he found himself, for
+the fiftieth time, wondering?
+
+There was a slight movement beside him.  The little black kitten had
+leaped on to the table, and sat there purring softly, its green gold
+eyes staring roundly out of a little ball of fluffiness.  Then, with one
+light, scarcely perceptible, movement it transferred itself to his
+shoulder and sat there, purring louder and more contentedly than ever.
+
+"Ah, poogie?" he said, pressing the little fluffy ball against his ear.
+"You'll have some one else to love now.  I wonder if she will though.
+Yes, of course she must."
+
+The light waggonette, which, with the cart, constituted the sole wheel
+motive power at Heath Hover, swung easily over the hardened snow; but
+once under way, Mervyn felt himself beset with misgivings.  What on
+earth had he been thinking about--or rather not been thinking about--to
+bring an open conveyance to meet a girl who was just recovering from an
+attack of "flu" and a fairly hard one at that?  In the cloudless
+sunniness of the day this was a side of things he had entirely
+overlooked.  Well, he would leave his own conveyance at Clancehurst and
+charter a closed fly.
+
+But when he reached the station, the 2:57 from Victoria was just
+signalled.  The station was busy and bustling as usual, and he did not
+care to risk not being there when his niece arrived.  So he left the
+trap in charge of a hanger-on and went on to the platform.
+
+Quite a number were getting out of the train as it drew up, nearly
+punctual to time.  For a moment he felt bewildered, and was moving
+rapidly among the alighting passengers, scanning each face.  But none
+seemed to answer the description given by Violet Clinock's glowing pen,
+as to her friend's outward appearance.
+
+Then he became aware of being himself a centre of interest.  A girl was
+standing there, looking intently at him--a girl, plainly dressed, with a
+pale face and golden hair framed in a wide black hat, and her straight
+carriage and erectly held head made her look taller than she actually
+was.  As he turned, an exclamation escaped her, and the colour suffused
+her cheeks, leaving them paler than before.  And the look in her eyes
+was positively a startled one.  Small wonder that it was so, for,
+standing there in the hurrying throng, Melian Seward almost thought she
+was looking at her dead father.
+
+The likeness was extraordinary.  The same face, the same features, even
+the cut of the grizzling, pointed beard; the same height, the same set
+of the shoulders.  Good Heavens!  The farewell on the terminus platform,
+the joke about the insurance ticket--small wonder that she should have
+reeled unsteadily as though beneath a shock.  Mervyn made a hasty step
+forward, both hands extended.
+
+"My dear child, there is no mistaking you," he said warmly.  "You have
+the regular Mervyn stamp.  But you are not looking at all the thing,"
+with a glance of very great concern.  "Well, well, we'll soon put that
+right here.  Come along now.  Porter, take this lady's things.  Come and
+show him what you've got in the van, dear."
+
+He took her arm, and Melian, who had not expected anything like so
+affectionate a welcome, felt in her present tottery state inclined to
+break down utterly.  This he saw, and kept her answering questions about
+herself, and other things, the while the luggage was being got out and
+taken across.
+
+"You will have to get outside of a hot cup of tea, dear, while they are
+loading up the things," he said, leading the way to the refreshment
+room.  "Oh, and by the by--" For the idea had come back to him, and now
+he put it to her that she would not be up to a five mile drive in an
+open trap, so it would only mean a little longer to wait while he went
+across to the inn opposite and ordered a closed one.  But opposition met
+him at once.
+
+"Why, Uncle Seward," she exclaimed, "that's the very thing I've been
+looking forward to--a glorious open air drive through the lovely
+country, and it's such a ripping afternoon.  Do let's have it.  Why,
+it'll do me all the world of good.  Fancy being shut up in a close,
+fusty fly!  And there's going to be such a ripping sunset too, I could
+see there was coming along in the train.  No.  Do let's drive in the
+open."
+
+"Certainly, dear.  I was only thinking that after a bad bout of `flu'
+you have to be careful--very careful."
+
+"Yes--yes.  But this air--why, it has done me good already; it's doing
+me good every minute.  And I've plenty of wraps.  The drive will be
+ripping."
+
+He looked at her admiringly.  The colour had come back to her cheeks and
+the blue eyes danced with delighted anticipation.
+
+"Very well," he said.  "Here's your tea.  Is it all as you like it?
+Yes?  Well, I'll just go and see that all your things are aboard."
+
+He went into the bar department, drank a glass of brandy and water, then
+went out to the waggonette.  Everything was stowed safe and snug.  There
+was certainly not a "mountain of luggage" he noticed, but it struck him
+that Melian's "plenty of wraps" was a bit of imagination.  He shed his
+fur coat and threw a French cloak over his shoulders.  Then he went back
+to her.
+
+She was ready, and the blue eyes had taken on quite a new light--very
+different eyes now, to when their sole look out was bounded by a patch
+of grey murk as a background to bizarre and hideous patterns in chimney
+pots.
+
+"Here's the shandradan, dear.  Now are you absolutely dead cert you're
+equal to a five mile open drive.  Here--put on this."
+
+"This" was the fur coat--and she objected.
+
+"Tut-tut, I'm skipper of this ship, and I won't have opposition.  So--in
+you get."
+
+He had hoisted it on to her, and now enveloped in it she climbed to the
+front seat beside him.  He arranged a corresponding thickness of double
+rug over her knees.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the porter, catching what was thrown to him.
+"Beg pardon, Mr Mervyn," he went on, sinking his voice, "but has
+anything more been 'eard about--"
+
+But Mervyn drew his whip across the pony's hind quarters with a
+sharpness that that long suffering quadruped had certainly never
+merited, and the vehicle sprang into lively motion, which was all the
+answer the ill-advised querist obtained.
+
+"Wasn't he asking you something?" said Melian, as they spun over the
+railway bridge above the station.  The town lay beneath and behind; an
+old church tower just glimpsed above tall bare elms.
+
+"I dare say.  But if we are going to get home before you get chilly, we
+can't stop to answer all sorts of idiotic questions."
+
+Even then the reply struck Melian as odd, less so perhaps than the
+change in her kinsman's manner while making it.  But she said:
+
+"Before I get chilly.  Why I'm wrapped up like--Shackleton, or Peary, or
+any of them.  In your coat too.  It was quite wrong of you to have
+insisted upon my wearing it, and I had plenty of wraps."
+
+"Had you?  As a prologue to our time together child, I may as well tell
+you I am a man of fads.  One is that of being skipper in my own ship.
+You obeyed orders, so there's no more to be said."
+
+It was put so kindly, so pleasantly.  The tone was everything, and again
+the girl felt a lump rise to her throat, for it reminded her all of her
+dead father.  Just the sort of thing he would have said; just the sort
+of tone in which he would have said it.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+OF THE BRIGHTENING OF HEATH HOVER.
+
+They had left the outskirts of the town behind, and were bowling along a
+tree-hung road, which in summer would have been a green tunnel.  The
+brown woods stood out above the whitened landscape, sombre in their
+winter nakedness, but always beautiful, over beyond an open, snow
+powdered stubble.  Then between coverts of dark firs, where pheasants
+crowed, flapping their way up to their nightly roost.  Past a hamlet
+embedded in tall, naked trees, then more dark firwoods interstudded with
+birch where the heathery openings broke the uniform evergreen--then out
+again for a space--on a bit of heathery upland which would be glowing
+crimson in golden August.
+
+"You can see around here for a bit," said Mervyn, pointing with his
+whip.  "Away there on the ridge, that tower is Lower Gidding, so called,
+presumably because Upper Gidding, ten miles away, is about two hundred
+feet lower down to the sea level.  Beyond that last wooded ridge but
+one, is my shop--our shop I mean."
+
+"It's lovely," replied the girl looking round with animation, and taking
+in the whole landscape.
+
+"Yes, perfectly lovely.  And look.  Here's the sunset I told you we were
+going to get."
+
+On the north eastern sky line, an opaque bank of clouds had heaved up--a
+bank of clouds that seemed to bode another snowfall.  The sun, sinking
+in a fiery bed, away in the cloudless west, was touching this--and lo,
+in a trice, the mountainous masses of the rising cloud-tier were first
+tinged, than bathed in a flood of glowing copper red.  Between, the long
+tongues of dark woodland stood out from the whitened ground.  The bark
+of a dog, from this or that distant farmhouse, came up clear on the
+silent distance, and then from this or that covert, arose the melodious
+hoot of owls, answering each other.
+
+"What a picture!" cried the girl, turning an animated face upon her new
+guardian.  "Heavens, what a picture!  And to think that this time
+yesterday I was staring at a row of hideous black chimney pots under a
+hideous murky sky.  Not only yesterday, but day after day before!  And--
+Uncle Seward, you _live_ in the midst of _this_!"
+
+Mervyn smiled to himself, then at her, and his smile was a very good one
+to behold.
+
+"Yes, dear, I do," he answered gently.  "And now you are going to as
+well."
+
+Down a steep road between dark woods, then an opening.  A long reach of
+ice cleft their depth; then a sudden quacking as several wild duck
+sprang upwards from an open hole by the sluice, and swished high above
+their heads.
+
+"Wild duck, aren't they?" cried the girl, turning her head to watch
+them, then looking up the frozen expanse.  "Why it might be some lake in
+the middle of the backwoods of Canada, such as one reads about."
+
+"Yes, so it might.  I can tell you you haven't come into exactly a tame
+part, even in our southern counties, which reminds me that I didn't
+sufficiently rub it into you that you would have to--well--er--rough it
+a bit."
+
+"If you had, that would have made it better still," was the answer.  "I
+prefer country places that are not too civilised."
+
+"That's fortunate," rejoined Mervyn with a pleased smile, "for you'll be
+exactly suited as far as that goes, in my shack."
+
+Up another steep bit of road at a foot's pace.  It was quite dusk now,
+but a golden moon, at half, rising over the tree-tops, threw a glitter
+upon the frosty banks.  Quite close by an owl hooted.
+
+"Oh, but this is too lovely for anything," cried Melian.  "By the way,
+what on earth are people talking about when they talk about the hoot of
+an owl being dismal.  Why, it's melodious to a degree."
+
+"Great minds skip together, dear.  That's just what I think."
+
+In his own mind the speaker was thinking something else; thinking it
+too, with a great glow of satisfaction.  They would get on splendidly
+together.  All her ideas, so far expressed, were the exact counterpart
+of his own.  What a gold mine he had lighted on when he had opened
+Violet Clinock's letter but a couple of days back.  Then he became aware
+that Melian had turned, with a quick movement, and was gazing at him
+with a curious--he even fancied half-startled--look.
+
+"That was exactly one of father's expressions," she said slowly.  "And--
+do you know, Uncle Seward, you _are_ so like him."
+
+"Am I, dear?" was the answer, made very gently.  "All the better,
+because then I shall be all the more able, as far as possible, to
+replace him.  But--here we are--at home."
+
+The waggonette had topped the rise, and was now descending a similarly
+wood-fringed road.  On the left front extended another long, narrow,
+triangular expanse of ice; set in its sombre, tree-framed encasing.
+Below the broad end of this a light or two gleamed.
+
+Old Joe and his ancient spouse were there to receive them, and did so
+with alacrity.  It was a tacit part of the bond that they were not to be
+required to remain at Heath Hover after dark, but on this occasion they
+were stretching a point; partly through motives of curiosity in that
+they were anxious to see what the new arrival was like; partly, that
+with the house well lighted up, and the bustle and stir of preparation,
+and the advent of some one young, and therefore presumably lively, on
+the scene, the idea of shadowy manifestations didn't seem in keeping
+somehow.
+
+"Why, this is ripping," cried Melian as she obtained her first view of
+the old living-room.  The deep, old-fashioned grate with its wide
+chimney was piled high with roaring logs, and a bright lamp on the table
+lighted up the low-beamed, whitewashed ceiling, and even the dark,
+red-papered walls.  "Why, it's a typical old-world sort of place.  Ought
+to have a ghost, and all that kind of thing."
+
+At this remark the venerable Judy, who was hobbling about putting some
+finishing touches to the table, stopped and stared.  Then, shaking her
+head, she hobbled out again.
+
+"What's the matter with the old party, Uncle Seward?" said Melian, whom
+this behaviour struck.  But she looked up too soon--just in time to
+catch her uncle's frown in fact.  "Is there one?" she added suddenly,
+and pointedly.
+
+"Good Heavens, child.  Every blessed house that wasn't built the day
+before yesterday, that isn't reeking with raw plaster and new cement, is
+supposed to carry a ghost, especially in the country, and standing in
+lonely solitude in the middle of woods like this.  Throw in a deep
+old-fashioned fireplace and some oak panelling and there--you've got
+your Christmas number at once."
+
+Telepathy may be bosh or it may not.  At any rate, to Melian Seward, the
+lightness of her uncle's tone, together with the annoyed look she had
+caught upon his face, and the sudden perturbation of the old woman at
+her remark, did not carry conviction.  She felt certain that there was
+some story attaching to the place.
+
+"What a jolly old door," she remarked, catching sight of the one in the
+corner, half hidden as it was, behind a curtain.  "Why it looks quite
+old.  Oh, but it is good," going over to it with her quick, rapid habit
+of movement.  "And the lock!  Why it's splendid.  What is it, Uncle
+Seward?  Sixteenth century, at least?"
+
+Mervyn looked at her, and strove not to look at her queerly.
+
+"I don't know what date it is," he said.  "It leads down to an old
+vault-like cellar, which probably was used for storing wine.  It isn't
+now, because I'm too poor to have any wine to store.  At least, I mean,
+darling,"--catching the expression with which she looked up--"I can't
+afford to run wine cellars, but,"--and then came in a little
+embarrassment--"I'm not quite too poor to be able to offer a home to
+my--stranded little niece, shall we say?"
+
+The additional term of endearment had struck her.  She looked at him in
+the lamplight, standing erect and beautiful.
+
+"Dear Uncle Seward," she said.  "I can't say anything--except that--I
+don't know how it is--there seems to have come something since I met
+you--since I heard from you.  Why, you bring back my dear old father to
+me at every turn.  You are so like him.  You have the same expressions--
+everything.  And yet--you were not even brothers."
+
+"Cousins, though.  Nearly the same thing.  Kiss me, child.  You haven't
+yet.  You know--all the public squash on the station platform."
+
+She did, and in the act it seemed as if her dead father--dead under the
+impression that he could serve her interests best by so dying--were
+alive and speaking within this room.  Even in the quiet, contained
+voice, she seemed to recognise his.
+
+It may have been imagination, but Mervyn seemed to think she could not
+withdraw her attention from the old nail-studded, shaded door in the
+corner.  She kept looking at it even while they were talking.  He
+remembered his vigil on the night of the rescue.  Heavens! was this
+beastly, deluding mesmeristic effect going to hold her too, now at the
+first few minutes of her arrival?  Then a diversion occurred.  A cry
+from Melian suddenly drew his attention.
+
+"What's this?  Oh you little sweet.  Here come to me, little
+pooge-pooge!"
+
+The little black kitten had suddenly landed itself, without notice, upon
+the white tablecloth, where it squatted, purring.
+
+"Oh, you sweet little woolly ball--where did you come from?" cried
+Melian, picking up the tiny creature and stuffing it into the hollow of
+her cheek and neck.  "Uncle Seward, did you get this on purpose for me?
+Tell me."
+
+Her cheeks were pink with animation, and her blue eyes shone.
+
+"No, dear.  That's a special child of my own, since it's little life
+began.  It is with me always.  I'm glad you've taken to it."
+
+"Taken to it?  I should think so.  Now you're going to be jealous, Uncle
+Seward.  I'm going to appropriate it.  Oh, what a sweet little beast!"
+holding it up under the armpits.  But the kitten growled
+expostulatingly.
+
+"`Beast'?  But it's human," laughed Mervyn.  "Well, you shall have it,
+dear.  Poogie--there's your new owner.  See?  My nose is clean out of
+joint.  I can take a back seat."
+
+Again Melian started, and momentarily grew grave.
+
+"Poogie."  That too was one of her father's expressions.  She looked
+again at her uncle.  Bright as the lamplight was, still it was
+artificial light, and under it the likenesss was more and more
+emphasised, in fact, startling.
+
+"Come upstairs, child, and I'll show you your room.  It's right next to
+mine, so you've only to bang on the wall--if you want--I mean--er--if
+you were to get nervous in the middle of the night, in a strange place."
+
+"But what on earth should I get nervous about?" exclaimed the girl, in
+round-eyed wonderment.
+
+"Oh, nothing.  But the sex is given that way, so I only thought I'd tell
+you, that's all.  Now, you can find your way down, and we'll have dinner
+when you're ready."
+
+Left alone, Melian proceeded to look round the room.  It was small but
+cosy, with two cupboards let into the wall.  A bright fire burned in the
+grate, and four lighted candles made a full and cheerful glow.  The
+window she noticed was rather small, and looking out of this, under the
+light of the moon, she again took stock of the house.  The windows at
+the projecting ends, unoccupied, seemed to stare lifelessly.  The house
+was too much below the level of the sluice to allow a view of the pond,
+but the outline of the woods towered up against the frosty stars, and
+the hoot of owls and the high up quacking of flighting duck, sounded
+upon the stillness.  A feeling of intense peace, of intense thankfulness
+came over her.  She had found a very haven of rest she felt already, and
+her newly acquired relative--well--she was sure she was going to get
+very fond of him indeed.
+
+Soon she betook herself downstairs, and cosy and bright indeed the room
+looked.  A roast fowl lay temptingly upturned and surrounded by shreds
+of bacon, and the potatoes were beautifully white and flowery.  The
+little black kitten was playing riotously with a cork tied to the end of
+a string which always hung from the back of one of the armchairs.
+
+"Well, child, I hope you've brought an appetite with you," said Mervyn,
+as they sat down.  "You'll have to be fed up.  `Plain but wholesome,'
+you know, as the school prospectuses used to say."
+
+"Yes, I've brought one.  I feel miles better already."  And then she
+talked on--telling him about her life of late, and its ups and downs.
+But of her earlier life she seemed to avoid mention.
+
+And Mervyn, encouraging her to talk, was furtively watching her.  The
+animation which lit up her face, bringing with it a tinge of colour, the
+gleam of the golden hair in the lamplight, the movement of the long,
+white, artistic fingers--there was no point in the entrancing picture
+that escaped him.  Indeed, he had been lucky beyond compare, he decided,
+when Violet Clinock's letter had found him; and again and again as he
+looked at Melian, he made up his mind that she was there for good,
+unless she got tired of it and of him and insisted on leaving.  But he
+would not think of that to-night.
+
+They got up at last, and Mervyn drew two big chairs to the fire.  Then
+he lighted his pipe.  The kitten in the most matter of course way jumped
+upon Melian's lap and curled up there.
+
+"There you are," laughed her uncle.  "My nose is out of joint the first
+thing.  It used to prefer me for a couch, but I don't quarrel with its
+taste."
+
+So they sat on and chatted cosily.  At last, bedtime came.  Then Melian
+remarked on the circumstance that the table hadn't been cleared.
+
+"No.  It won't be, till to-morrow morning," was the reply.  "Old Judy
+has taken herself off long ago.  I told you you'd have to rough it--eh?
+You see she and old Joe are the only people I can get to do my outlying
+work, and they hang out in a cottage the other side of the hill--beyond
+the first pond we passed.  The young ones won't stay on the place--find
+it too lonely, they say.  So there you are."
+
+"Yes.  I'm going to turn to and do things," answered Melian decisively.
+
+"Well, never mind about beginning now," he said, lighting her candle and
+preceding her to her room.  "Look, here's a handbell.  If you want
+anything, or are feeling lonely or `nervy' in the night, ring it like
+the mischief--and I'll be there.  Good-night, dear."
+
+"Good-night, Uncle Seward," and she kissed him affectionately.
+
+Mervyn returned to the living-room and re-lighted his pipe.  His gaze
+wandered to the shadowy door in the corner.  Was its tradition really
+and completely upset?  That strange manifestation, as to which he was
+hardly yet prepared to swear to as entirely an optical delusion--had
+presaged good to somebody, in that by keeping him awake he had been able
+to save the life of the stranger.  But then the stranger had died
+immediately afterwards, under mysterious circumstances, and had this not
+befallen why then he, John Seward Mervyn would never have become aware
+of the existence or propinquity of his niece.  And what a find that
+was--a young, bright, beautiful presence to irradiate the shadows of
+this gloomy old haunted grange.  No room for any melancholic, fanciful
+imaginings with that about.
+
+And yet--and yet--it may be that he was not quite easy in his mind.  Not
+for nothing had he shown her that clearly ringing handbell, and laid
+emphasis on the unhesitating use of it.
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A SLIP ON A STONE.
+
+The morning broke, bright and clear, one of those rare winter mornings
+without a cloud in the blue, and the sun making additional patterns
+through the frost facets on the window pane.  And the said sun had not
+very long since risen.
+
+Mervyn looked out of the window; the house faced due east and caught the
+first glory of the morning sun--when there was any to catch, and to-day
+there was.  The frosted pines glistened and gleamed with it, so too did
+the earth, with its newly laid coating of crystals.  But in the midst of
+this setting was a picture.
+
+Melian was coming down the path.  A large hooded cloak was wrapped round
+her, but she had nothing on her head, and the glory of her golden hair
+shone like fire in the new born, clear rays.  The kitten, a woolly ball
+of black fluffiness, was squatted upon her shoulder, and she was singing
+to herself in a full, clear voice.  He noted her straight carriage, and
+the swing of her young, joyous, elastic gait.  A picture indeed!  And
+this bright, beautiful, joyous child, was going to belong to him
+henceforward--to him, all alone.  No one else in the wide world had the
+shadow of a claim upon her.  She had come to him out of sordid
+surrounding of depression and want--yes, it would soon have come to
+that, judging from the account she had given of herself.  Well, she had
+fallen upon the right place, and at the right time.
+
+He dressed quickly.  He heard her enter the house, and old Judy's harsh
+croaky tones mingling with the clear melodious ones.  Then a silvery
+rippling laugh, then another.  He remembered old Judy could be funny at
+times in her dry, cautious old rustic way.  John Seward Mervyn felt the
+times had indeed changed for him.  He felt years and years younger,
+under the bright spell of this youthful influence in the gloomy and
+shunned old house.
+
+"Well dear!" he cried gaily, coming into the room.  "You don't look much
+of the `flu' patient slowly convalescing.  What sort of an ungodly early
+time did you get up?"
+
+"Oh Uncle Seward, I've had such fun.  I've been out all up the pond, and
+this little poogie had a romp all over the ice.  Then it rushed up a
+tree after a squirrel, and they sat snarling at each other at the end of
+a thin bough, and the squirrel jumped to another tree, but the poogie
+wasn't taking any.  Were you, pooge-pooge?"  And she squeezed the little
+woolly ball into her face and neck.
+
+"Well, it won't take you long to get on your legs again," said Mervyn,
+looking admiringly at the perfect picture she presented.  "What shall we
+do with you to-day?  Go for a long drive--or what?  Well, I don't know.
+The old shandradan I brought you here in isn't too snug for a
+convalescing invalid, and it's the best I've got.  But first we'll have
+breakfast."  And he hailed Judy, with an order to hurry on that repast.
+
+"Oh, that be hanged for a yarn, Uncle Seward.  I'm not a convalescing
+anything.  I've convalesced already, in this splendid air and
+surroundings.  Let's go out somewhere.  Do let's."
+
+She had clasped both hands round his arm and the blue eyes were
+sparkling with anticipation.
+
+"All right.  You shall be Queen of the May, to-day at any rate.  But I
+think we mustn't overdo it at the start.  We'll lunch early, and then
+start on a rambling round of exploration--equipped with plenty of
+wraps."
+
+"And we may get another ripping sunset like yesterday," she exclaimed.
+
+"You are extraordinarily fond of Nature's effects, child.  What else
+appeals to you?"
+
+"Old stones?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Old stones.  Ruined castles--churches--Roman remains--everything of
+that kind."
+
+Mervyn emitted a long and expressive whistle.
+
+"Good Lord! but you've come to the right shop for that," he said.  "Why
+this countryside just grows them.  All sorts of old mouldy monuments, in
+musty places, just choking with dry rot.  Eh?  That what you mean?"
+
+"That's just what I do mean."
+
+"Oh Lord?"
+
+He was looking at her, quizzically ruthful.  He foresaw himself being
+dragged into all sorts of weird places; hoary old churches, whose
+interiors would suggest the last purpose on earth to that for which they
+had been constructed, and reeking of dry rot--half an ancient arch in
+the middle of a field which would require wading through a swamp to get
+at--and so on.  But while he looked at her he was conscious that if she
+had expressed a wish to get a relic chipped out of the moon, he would
+probably have given serious thought to the feasibility of that
+achievement.
+
+"But that sort of thing's all so infernally ugly," he said.
+
+"Is it?  Ugly?  Old Norman architecture ugly!  What next?"
+
+Mervyn whistled again.
+
+"I don't know anything about Norman, or any other architecture," he
+said, with a laugh.  "I only know that when I run into any Johnnies who
+do, or think they do--they fight like the devil over it, and vote each
+other crass ignoramuses.  How's that?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Let's go and look at something of the kind this
+afternoon.  Shall we?"
+
+"No, my child.  Not if I know it.  You wait till you're clean through
+this ailment of yours before I sanction you going into any damp old
+vault to look at gargoyles."
+
+Melian went off into a rippling peal.
+
+"Gargoyles don't live in vaults, Uncle Seward.  They live on roofs, and
+towers."
+
+"Do they?  Well, wherever they live, God's good open English country is
+going to be the thing for you to-day, anyhow."
+
+"All safe.  The other will keep."
+
+Mervyn dawdled over breakfast, absolutely contrary to his wont.  His
+wont was to play with it; now he ate it.  This bright presence turned a
+normally gloomy necessity into a fairy feast.
+
+"Come and let's potter round a bit," he said, soon after they had done.
+
+"Rather."
+
+Melian swung on her large hooded cloak, and they went up the step path
+to the sluice.  The sheen of ice lay before them, running up in a far
+triangle to the distance of the woods.
+
+"By the way, do you know how to skate?" said Mervyn.
+
+"Yes, but I'm not great at it, and it makes my ankles horribly stiff."
+
+"Well, I sometimes take a turn or two, just to keep in practice.  But
+it's awful slow work all alone.  If you like, dear, I'll get you a pair
+from Clancehurst and you can take a turn with me."
+
+"It wouldn't be worth while I think," she answered.  "In point of fact
+I'm feeling rather too much of a worm for hard exercise just now, and
+the ice will probably vanish any day."
+
+They wandered on, over the crisp frozen woodland path, and then he
+pointed out the scene of the stranger's immersion and rescue.  Melian
+looked at it with vivid interest.
+
+"It must have been a lively undertaking, Uncle Seward," she commented.
+"And that you should only just have heard his call for help?  And then--
+him dying afterwards.  Poor man, I wonder who he was."
+
+"So do I--did rather--for you can't go on wondering for ever.  But that
+idiot, Nashby, has still more than a suspicion that I murdered him.  By
+the way, Melian, you remember I said there were reasons why I couldn't
+come up to Town to fetch you; well, there it is.  I've been practically
+under police supervision ever since.  If I had gone up to London they'd
+have concluded I'd bolted, and started all Scotland Yard on the spot.
+How's that?"
+
+"How's that?  They must be idiots."
+
+"Yes.  That's near the `bull.'  But Nashby, though an excellent county
+police inspector, imagines himself a very real Sherlock Holmes whose
+light is hidden in a bushel called Clancehurst; consequently there being
+no earthly motive for me making away with the stranger, therefore I must
+have made away with him--according to Nashby."
+
+"But, Uncle Seward.  Do you really mean to say you're suspected of
+murdering the man?"
+
+"Well, more than half--by Nashby.  I don't know that any one else shares
+his opinion.  In fact, I don't think they do.  Look.  Here's the place
+where I hauled him out."
+
+They had come near the head of the pond.  In the weeks of frost that had
+supervened there were still traces in the ice of that midnight tragedy.
+Melian looked at them with wide eyed wonderment.
+
+"Come along," said Mervyn extending a hand.  "It's quite safe--from
+seven to nine inches thick.  We can walk all over it now, can even walk
+back on it instead of through the wood."
+
+And they did; but first they went up it to where it narrowed to its
+head, where the feeding stream trickled in.  Two wild ducks rose with
+alarmed quacking, and winnowed away at a surprising velocity over the
+tree-tops.
+
+"There'd have been a good chance if I'd got a gun," remarked Mervyn.  "I
+come along at dusk sometimes and bag a brace.  Old Sir John Tullibard up
+at the Hall gave me a sort of carte blanche to shoot anything in that
+line, and told the keeper to cut me in when the pheasants wanted
+thinning down.  He's a decent old chap, but isn't at home much.  To put
+it nakedly he's a regular absentee landlord, but his people seem snug
+enough."
+
+"The Hall?  What sort of place is it?  What's it called?"
+
+Mervyn laughed.
+
+"Why I do believe you're scenting old stones already.  Well, it's rather
+a jolly old place, Plane House it's called.  Old Tullibard's my
+landlord."
+
+"Good.  We must have a look over Plane House."
+
+"Easy enough.  If the old man comes over we'll go and dine there.  I do
+that when he is here, but that's not often.  He's an old Indian too,
+though we weren't in the same part.  Now he prefers hanging out on the
+Riviera.  I don't.  Old England's good enough for me.  Look at this for
+instance."
+
+She did look, and thoroughly agreed.  They were walking down the frozen
+surface of the pond as on a broad highway.  The gossamer branches of the
+leafless trees shone in the sunlight, picked out in myriad frosted,
+scintillating patterns of indescribable delicacy against the cloudless
+blue of the winter sky, and, in between, the dark foliage of firs.  Now
+and then a slide of snow from these, dislodged by the focussed rays of
+the midday sun, thudded to the ground, with a ghostly break upon the
+silence of the woodland.  But the air--crisp, invigorating--Melian's
+cheeks were aglow with it, and the blue eyes, thus framed, shone forth
+in all the animation begotten of the scene and surroundings.  Mervyn
+stared, in whole-souled admiration, likewise wonderment.
+
+"Well done, my `flu' convalescent," he cried, dropping an arm round her
+shoulders.  "You've come to the right sort of hospital and no mistake."
+
+"Yes, I have indeed," she answered, becoming suddenly grave, as she
+thought of the all pervading murk and the blackened vista of chimney
+stacks.  Then, as they gained the broad end of the pond, and she climbed
+lightly over the fence on to the road that ran along the top of the
+sluice--"What an awfully picturesque old place Heath Hover looks from
+here, Uncle Seward.  By the way, it's a curious name.  What does it come
+from?"
+
+"Ah--ah!  An enquiring mind?  I suppose that goes on all fours with the
+love of old stones--eh?  Heath I take it is after the surroundings.
+When you get up beyond these woods you're on heathery slopes, which glow
+red in summer, so I suppose they called it after that; the other in
+local parlance is something coldish or damp, and this house is situated
+that way in all conscience.  So there you are."
+
+"How ripping, I would like to see that same red glow."
+
+"Well, and you will," he answered.  "But you'll have to wait for it,
+like for everything else.  And summer's none too near just now."
+
+They were halfway down the path from the sluice by now.  Melian had
+halted to take in the view, her eyes wide open and fairly revelling in
+it.  Mervyn did not fail to notice that one foot rested on the largish
+round stone which covered something--which constituted the tombstone
+of--_something_.  And then, whether it was that the stone was slippery
+with the frost, her footing suddenly failed, and she would have fallen,
+had he not caught her in a firm grasp.
+
+"Steady up, child," he laughed, as he set her on her feet again.  "Why
+you haven't got your ice legs even yet, although we've walked down that
+long frozen pond."
+
+She laughed too.  But the coincidence struck him.  Why on earth should
+that have been the one stone of all those around, on which she should
+have chanced to trip?  It was significant.  Further, as they resumed
+their way, he noticed that the stone had been displaced, though ever so
+little.  Even that circumstance sent an uneasy chill through him.  It
+had been firm enough before.  Could the frost have loosened it?  Or--
+could any other agency?  And then came the sound of approaching
+footsteps on the road above.
+
+"Good-day, sir," and the passing man saluted, respectfully enough.
+"Sharp, middlin' weather, this, sir?"
+
+"It is," he answered, with a genial nod, and the man passed on.
+
+"You remember what I told you about being under police surveillance," he
+said as they entered the house--old Judy could be dimly heard grumbling
+at her ancient proprietor through the back of the kitchen door.
+
+"Yes," answered the girl wonderingly.
+
+"Well that was one of Nashby's pickets."
+
+"What?  That old yokel who just passed?"
+
+Mervyn nodded, with a whimsical smile on his face.
+
+"But what in the world does he think he's going to discover?"
+
+"Ah, exactly.  Well, that's his job, not mine.  Only he's wasting a
+precious lot of valuable time."
+
+All the same the speaker was just a trifle--and unaccountably--disposed
+to uneasiness.  What a curious coincidence it was, for instance, that
+his niece should have suddenly slipped and so nearly fallen, headlong,
+on that very stone that custodied this infernal thing!  Then again, that
+the plain clothes man, with his unmistakable imprint of Scotland Yard,
+and his transparent affectation of local speech and dialect, should have
+happened upon the spot at the very moment of that coincidence!  There
+was nothing in coincidence.  Coincidence spelt accident:--sheer
+accident.  Still, this one set John Seward Mervyn thinking--thinking
+more than a bit.
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE SHADOW IN THE PLACE.
+
+A fortnight had gone since Melian's arrival at Heath Hover, and she had
+picked up to such an extent that both she and her uncle found it
+difficult to realise that she had been seriously ill at all.  He took
+her for drives, always carefully wrapped up, and she had revelled in the
+beauties of the surrounding country, winter as it was--the wide vistas
+of field and wood, and the line of downs, sometimes near, sometimes far,
+stretching east and west as far as the eye could travel.  But he
+absolutely refused, with a bracing sturdiness, to allow any practical
+incursions into the domain of archaeology.
+
+"That will keep," he declared.  "Old stones spell damp.  You've got to
+steer clear of that for some time to come."
+
+Then, as she got stronger, they had walked too, and the breezy, open
+uplands, contrasting with fragrant wood, did their share of the tonic.
+But this was not to last.  A damp, muggy thaw set in, and the trees and
+hedges wept, the day through, under the unbroken murk of a wholly
+depressing sky; and you wanted very thick boots for underfoot purposes.
+Mervyn began to look anxiously at his charge.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be getting awfully fed up with this, dear," he said
+one morning, when the thin drizzle and the drip-drip from bare, leafless
+bough and twig seemed rather more depressing than ordinarily.  "What can
+be done for you?  Frankly I'm too poor to take you away to a more
+sunshiny climate--or I would, like a shot.  For my part I'm used to this
+sort of thing, and it doesn't `get upon' me any.  There was a time when
+it would have, but that time's gone.  But for you--why it's devilish
+rough."
+
+Then Melian had reassured him--had abundantly reassured him.  She didn't
+find it heavy, she declared--not she.  Why, on top of her experience of
+bearleading a brace of utterly uninteresting and unengaging children--
+and being at the beck and call of their detestable underbred mother,
+this was ideal.  And she somehow or other managed to convey that her
+sense of the improvement was not merely a material one.  Did they not
+get on splendidly together?  Had they not any number of ideas in
+common--those they had not, only serving to create variety by giving
+rise to more or less spirited but always jocose arguments?  Rough on
+her?  Dull for her?  It was nothing of the sort, she declared with
+unambiguous emphasis.  And the fascination of the open country, even
+with the weeping woodlands and soggy, miry underfoot, was coming more
+and more over her, she further declared.  And her uncle was hugely
+gratified, more so than he cared to realise.  This bright young presence
+lightening his lonely existence from morn till night--how on earth would
+he be able to do without it again?  Those long rambles, not by himself
+now, beset as they had been with uncheering thoughts of the past and a
+less cheering vista of the future; the now cosy snug evenings by his own
+fireside, with the after-dinner pipe, listening to the girl's bright
+talk and entering into her ideas while the lamplight gleamed upon her
+golden head and animated eyes--and she herself made up such a picture
+sitting framed in the big armchair opposite--the little black fluffy
+kitten curled up on her lap.  Of a truth life held something yet for him
+after all, if only this were going to last.  But now he said:
+
+"How about getting that nice girl you were chumming with--and she must
+be a nice girl from the way she wrote about you--down here to stop with
+you a bit, dear?  Make a kind of relief from me, you know.  Always
+stewed up from morning till night with an old fogey--the same old fogey
+at that--can't be altogether lively."
+
+"Violet?  She couldn't come, if she wanted to ever so," was the answer.
+"She's entirely dependent on her job--and, as it was, her people cut up
+rusty if she chucked it for a day or two when I was ill.  What beasts
+people are--aren't they.  Uncle Seward?"
+
+"We shan't quarrel on that question," answered Mervyn, sending out a
+long puff of smoke, and meditatively watching it resolve itself into
+very perfect rings in mid air.  "A very large proportion are, and that
+just the proportion which could best afford not to be.  Doesn't she ever
+get any time off then?  Holidays?"
+
+"She'll get about four days off at Easter time.  It would be jolly to
+get her down here then, poor old Violet.  She does work, and she's a
+good sort.  It's precious lucky I had her to go to when I did."
+
+"Precious lucky for me too."
+
+"Look here, Uncle Seward," said the girl, gravely.  "Don't talk any more
+about old fogeys and it being heavy and slow for me, and all that.  I
+don't want to be disrespectful, but it's--er--it's bosh."
+
+Mervyn burst into a wholehearted laugh.  The answer, and, above all, the
+look which accompanied it, the tone in which it was made, relieved him
+beyond measure.
+
+"Is it?  Very well, little one.  We won't talk any more--bosh.  How's
+that?"
+
+"`That' is.  So we won't.  Yes, we'll get her down here at Easter,"--and
+then the girl broke off suddenly and looked graver still.
+
+"Listen to me, Uncle Seward, and how I am running on," she said.  "Any
+one would think I had come here to live, instead of for a rest until I
+can find another job.  And Easter is a long way off, and--"
+
+"And?  What then?" he interrupted.  "Of course you have come here to
+live.  Do you think I'm going to let you go wasting your young life
+bearleading a lot of abominable brats while I've got a shack that'll
+hold the two of us?  Well, I'm not, then.  How's _that_?"
+
+Melian looked embarrassed, and felt it.
+
+"Uncle Seward," she urged at last.  "You said you were--poor--more than
+once.  Well, is it likely I'm going to sponge on you for all time?  It's
+delightful to be here with you, while I'm picking up again, but--"
+
+"`But',"--and again he interrupted.  "My dear child, I see through it
+all.  You are going on the tack of the up-to-date girl, wanting to be
+independent.  There's a sort of grandiloquent, comforting smack about
+that good old word `independent,' isn't there?  Well, you can be just as
+independent as you like here.  You can take entire charge.  You can
+order me about as you want to--I don't say I shall obey, mind--but I
+shan't complain.  Well, if you go bearleading some woman's cubs they
+won't do the first, and they'll do the last _ad lib_.  Now then.  Which
+is the lesser evil?"
+
+Melian laughed outright.  That was so exactly his brusque and to the
+point way of putting things.  He went on, now very gently.
+
+"I am getting an old man now, child, and I have led a very lonely life.
+In my old age it promises to be lonelier still.  You are alone too.  Is
+it mere chance that brings us together?  But if you think you have a
+mission, may it not conceivably be one to look after the old instead of
+the young.  So now--there you are."
+
+The voice was even, matter-of-fact sounding.  But underlying it was a
+note of feeling--of real pathos.
+
+"When I emphasised the fact of being poor," the speaker went on, "I
+meant that I was in no position to indulge in luxuries, or outside
+jollification, like going abroad, for instance, to escape English
+winters, and so on.  But you can see for yourself how this show is run,
+and that there's plenty of everything and no stint, and what's warm and
+snug and comfy for one is for two.  That's where the `poverty' begins
+and ends."
+
+The girl got up and came over to him.
+
+"Uncle Seward, I will stay with you as long as ever you want me," she
+said gravely, placing her hands upon his shoulders.
+
+"Hurrah!  This old shack's going to look up now," he cried.  "I'll see
+if I can't beat up some one young about the country side, to make things
+livelier for you, dear.  And then, when it gets warmer and springlike,
+we'll have such romps all over the country.  Why these rotten old
+gargoyles with their noses rubbed off--you'll soon know them all by
+heart, be able to write a book about them, and all that sort of thing.
+Can you ride a bicycle, child?"
+
+"Rather, but--"
+
+"Oh well, I'll get one for you.  I've got mine stowed away.  I never use
+it in winter, but at other times it's handy forgetting about.  Now we'll
+have rare romps around together."
+
+She looked at him in something of astonishment.  He was talking quite
+excitedly, quite loudly in fact, for him.
+
+"Why, you're scaring the poogie," she cried, with a laugh.  "Look.  It
+has gone under the table."
+
+The little black kitten had dived under the table, and thence now began
+to emit a series of growls.  Melian was puzzled.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" she said.  "Oh, I suppose it hears another
+poogie out in front, and resents it.  But it's generally so placid, even
+then."
+
+But to Mervyn's mind came an uncomfortable chill.  He had known just
+such a demonstration before, but on one occasion only.  And now it was
+behaving in exactly the same way.  Its shrill growlings even increased.
+Melian dived into the shadow to coax it out, then reappeared, holding
+the tiny creature aloft.
+
+"Poogie.  What's the matter with you?" she cried.  "Be quiet now, and go
+seeps again."
+
+But though it curled itself on her lap, it showed no intention of going
+to sleep.  Instead, it lifted its little fluffy head and growled again,
+though not so furiously as it had done when alone.
+
+"I do believe it's afraid of something," said the girl, wonderingly.
+"It must be something outside.  Look.  It's staring towards the window."
+
+Mervyn could not for the life of him account for it, but that a cold
+shiver was running through his whole being, there could be no doubt.
+His back was to the window, the blinds were down and there was no
+draught.  But right under this window, and against the wall, was the
+couch upon which the dead man had fallen asleep--never to wake again.
+And in this direction the kitten was now staring--and growling; growling
+just as it had growled on that night of the opening of the door.  And,
+more marvellous still, a feeling was upon him that he dare not look
+round, dare not turn his head and follow the little creature's set,
+unquiet glance--and that in the thoroughly warmed and now cheerful room.
+But Melian's voice and movement broke the spell.
+
+"What is it, poogie," she was saying, advancing to the window, and
+incidentally to the couch.  "Another poogie outside or a dog--Oh, you
+little beast!"
+
+She had broken off suddenly, dropping the kitten on to the table, under
+which it promptly dived and crouched, growling again.  For it had grown
+perfectly frantic as she was carrying it to the window and had struck
+its claws into her hand, drawing blood.
+
+Mervyn sprang to his feet.
+
+"What?  It has scratched you?" he cried, taking the long white hand and
+examining it concernedly.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," laughed the girl.
+
+"Nothing or not, we'll bathe it a bit," he said, going over to the
+sideboard, and dashing some water into a tumbler.  "Any sort of wound
+should be bathed at once, just in case there might be something left in
+it," and he proceeded to perform that process then and there.
+
+"Oh, it's all safe," laughed the girl.  "Poor little poogie!  I suppose
+it was scared over something and had to get away at any price.  I'm dead
+cert, it didn't mean it."
+
+"No--no," assented Mervyn.  "Cats are extraordinarily `nervy' things.  I
+believe they've a sight more imagination than they're given credit for.
+It's quite likely it was aware of something outside to which it had an
+objection, a stoat perhaps or even a badger.  Now a dog would have
+barked the house down, but there'd have been no scare."
+
+"Of course.  By the way, Uncle Seward, I wonder you don't keep a dog or
+two.  They are such jolly beasts to have--especially in a place like
+this."
+
+"I've tried it, and they've disappeared.  They get into the coverts you
+know, and then--!  I don't care to keep one always on a chain.  It's
+beastly rough luck on them."
+
+He had tried it, and the dogs had disappeared, even as he had said.
+They had done so, however, on their own initiative.  But he did not tell
+her this.
+
+Yet it struck him that she must instinctively have grasped--or been
+affected by--something of the "influence" which at times seemed to haunt
+the place.  She, too, now kept looking towards the blind-drawn window,
+and that not in her natural way.  So far he had guarded her from any
+rumours from outside as to its sinister repute; and, as we have said,
+had threatened the old couple with the last extremity if they should let
+go anything.  And now, just as he was congratulating himself that she
+would settle down quite happily and contentedly, comes this untoward
+mysterious making towards upset.  And now, all at once, she had grown
+quite grave, quite subdued.
+
+"Uncle Seward," she said, suddenly.  "Do you remember what I said the
+night I arrived--that this place ought to be haunted?"
+
+"Yes, dear, and I remember my answer--that every place not screechingly
+new, etc, etc, is supposed to be."
+
+"Well, is it?"
+
+The directness of the question was a trifle staggering, coming just when
+it did.
+
+"Well, I've been in it some months--all alone too, mind you," he
+answered, "and I've never seen anything.  All alone, mind," he
+reiterated, "through long, dark winter evenings and nights.  Of course,
+that poor chap coming to grief here so mysteriously, might give rise to
+all sorts of yarns among the yokels.  But then, where is the house--
+built longer ago than last year--in which some one or other hasn't died?
+No, child; you mustn't bother your little gold head over such boshy
+ideas as that.  And if you listen to all the old women of both sexes
+round the country side, why half of them are afraid to cross their
+village street after dark, unless some one invites them to the pub."
+
+She laughed; yet somehow or other her laugh did not ring quite
+spontaneous.
+
+"Of course," she said.  "But--"
+
+"But--what?"
+
+"Oh, nothing.  As you say, it's astonishing how one's imagination can
+play the fool with one.  Tell me, Uncle Seward, do you believe in that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"What?  In imagination?  Of course I do."
+
+"No--no.  I mean in places being haunted, and apparitions and all that?"
+
+"No.  Certainly not.  The Christmas numbers have a great deal to answer
+for in that line.  Surroundings, solitude, the state of your nerves--the
+weather, even--all do the rest.  You can get yourself into a state which
+I believe theologians call `the dispositions'--which done into plain
+English means that if you want to see a thing, you can, in the long run,
+bring yourself to see it--in imagination."
+
+"Only in imagination.  You're sure you mean that, Uncle Seward?"
+
+"I should rather think I was sure.  Go to bed now, child,"--she had
+lighted her candle--"and chuck out all that sort of disquieting bosh.
+Why, we are as jolly here together as we can be, and we are going to be
+ever so much jollier.  So chuck these imaginings--by the way, just
+because the little poogie starts growling at nothing in particular.  Eh?
+Sounds rather absurd doesn't it?"
+
+"It does rather," she said, with a laugh as they bade each other
+good-night.  But there was just a subtle something about her laugh,
+about her tone of voice, even about the expression of her eyes, that
+left her uncle in a state of vague uneasiness.  Something must have
+occurred to alarm her; but then women were "skeery" creatures--
+especially where the imaginative element came in.  But for all that he
+didn't want even this to come in where Melian was concerned.
+
+He sat on, after she had gone, sat on over the cosy fire, thinking.  He
+could hear her footsteps overhead as she crossed and recrossed her
+room--could hear her sweet young voice trilling forth snatches of all
+sorts of melodies, and again he blessed the chance that had sent her
+here to him in his loneliness.
+
+He lighted another pipe, and tilted a final "nightcap" out of the square
+bottle at his elbow.  The little black kitten jumped lightly up on to
+his shoulder and rubbed its soft little woolly shape against his cheek,
+then dropped down on to his knees and sat purring.
+
+What could have occurred to set up a scare in the child, he wondered?
+Something had--obviously--but he had purposely evaded pressing the point
+for fear of making it too important.  Well, if it came to getting on her
+nerves, he would, by hook or by crook get her away--at any rate for a
+time.  As a matter of hard fact he had grown attached to Heath Hover--
+strangely so--and he occupied it practically rent free, that was for the
+sheer keeping of it up; and this was a consideration.  Also he enjoyed a
+fair modicum of sport--likewise free.  But if it were to come to making
+a choice between this and his niece--why by now he knew that there would
+be no sort of difficulty in deciding.
+
+He dropped more and more into the dreamy--and rather contented--stage.
+He was looking forward to a very pleasurable time before him when the
+year should grow and mellow into glorious spring and golden summer.  The
+sound of footsteps overhead had ceased now, and that for some time.  She
+was asleep, and had forgotten her uncanny imaginings.  He found himself
+looking forward to the morrow when she would be with him again--her
+sweet, quick, animated face, and the golden hair shining in the
+sunlight.
+
+And then?--What was this?  A sudden pounding of feet overhead--a
+strange, half stifled cry--a rush down the old creaky stairs.  In a
+fraction of a second he was at the door, and as he opened it, framed
+against the dark background of passage and staircase, Melian was
+standing, her face set with a strange horror that seemed to turn the
+spectator's blood to ice, the blue eyes dilating in a wild stare, as
+though they saw--or had seen--something not of the earth earthly.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+THE STONE AGAIN.
+
+"Well?  What is it, dear?  Forgotten something?"
+
+With an effort he had put on a light, matter-of-fact tone.  He pretended
+not to notice her perturbation.
+
+"No.  But--"
+
+She looked genuinely distressed, worse still--genuinely frightened.  She
+almost pushed past him in her anxiety to get into the full light, and he
+noticed a quick movement of half turning the head as though to look
+behind her.
+
+"But--what?  I think it's that bit of fried plum pudding; still, the
+touch of burnt brandy on it should have counteracted its effects," he
+went on, keeping up the role.  "Nightmare of course.  And our solemn
+discussion before you turned in would make that way."
+
+"No, no," and she shook her head, decisively.  "I wish it was.  As sure
+as I sit here, Uncle Seward, there was a Something in the room.  I heard
+it--first--heard it moving, but for the life of me I dared not move
+myself, not even to light the candle.  It was the sound of steps--of
+light steps--coming towards the bed.  Oh, it was horrible--awful?" she
+broke off, with a quick, scared glance around as though still expecting
+to see something.  "And then--wait a bit," seizing him by the wrists.
+"Something cold and clammy touched my face, just touched it--like the
+feel of dead fingers.  I could see something shadowy too in the light of
+the fire--and then I just dashed out of bed and came straight down
+here."
+
+"Melian, pull yourself together child," he said gently.  "You've had a
+bad dream, coming on top of what we were talking about."  But the look
+on her face was that of one who had had a very bad scare indeed, and
+somehow Mervyn had been under the impression that his niece was the sort
+of girl who would take a great deal of scaring.  "Here, put this down.
+It'll pull you together."
+
+"This" was a glass of port, which he had got out of the sideboard.  She
+sipped a little, and looked as if she didn't like it, then a little
+more, and felt better.
+
+"That's right," he went on.  "Now, look here, you've been using that
+room for over a fortnight, and have never thought of bothering about
+anything of the kind.  Why I slept in it myself for several nights
+before you came."
+
+He had meant the assurance to be reassuring, but hardly had he made it
+than Mervyn saw he had made a false step.
+
+"But why did you sleep in it, Uncle Seward?" said the girl, quickly.
+
+"Eh?  Why to see that it was comfortable--not damp and all that sort of
+thing."
+
+He wondered if she accepted this explanation.  In his heart he doubted
+it.
+
+"The cold touch on your face was probably a bat," he went on.  "Do you
+sleep with your window open?"
+
+"Oh yes, always."
+
+"There you are then.  I think we've got at the solution.  Now let's go
+straight up and look for the bat."
+
+He had as yet not gauged the extent of his niece's knowledge of natural
+history, and would have given much to have had a real live bat in his
+possession at that moment, that he might privily have set it loose when
+they gained the room.  She, however, seemed not inclined to question the
+probability of bats hawking around at large in what was nearly
+mid-winter!
+
+"Now," he said, holding up the light, and making a careful inspection of
+the room, "we'll find him probably, hanging on somewhere in the corner.
+No," after an exhaustive search.  "Oh well, he's probably gone out by
+the way he came.  Better keep the window nearly up to the top--then he
+can't get back again."
+
+"Do you think it was really that, Uncle Seward?"  Melian asked.
+
+"Why of course," he answered with the uneasy consciousness of skating on
+thin ice.  "Unless it was a common or house mouse which had found its
+way in through somewhere.  But now you go to bed again, child, and I'll
+come up and turn in too.  Then you'll know there's some one right near
+you, and all you've got to do is to knock on the partition in case you
+get another scare.  It's not a very thick one, and I shall hear at once.
+But you mustn't get another scare, if only that there's nothing on
+earth to get scared at.  Look--you can see all over the room now.  It's
+just an ordinary room--old, but with no secret panels or anything of
+that kind, and I'm only just the other side of that partition.  You'll
+sleep like a humming top now, I should think."
+
+"I believe I will," she answered, feeling more reassured by his tone of
+decisive confidence, the recent glass of port, to one unaccustomed,
+contributing largely to that end.  "Tell me, Uncle Seward, do you think
+me an awful fool?  I wouldn't like that?"
+
+"My dear child, of course I don't.  All women get nervy at times--not
+only women either--for the rest the plum pudding, _and_ the subject of
+conversation.  Now good-night, darling, you'll be as jolly as Punch in
+the morning.  And remember, there's only the partition between us."
+
+Even as her uncle had predicted, the girl laid her head on the pillow
+perfectly reassured and calmed, and in no time was breathing softly and
+evenly in a dreamless sleep.  But this did not fall to Mervyn's lot.
+The incident had banished all sleep from his mind.  He had laughed off
+the situation, and effectually soothed Melian--in fact he was surprised
+to think how completely he had succeeded.  But what if something of the
+sort recurred, and he found that it got too much upon the girl's nerves,
+and that, too, just as he flattered himself that everything was going on
+so well?  There were reasons why he did not want to leave Heath Hover;
+reasons over and above his undoubted attachment to the place--and they
+were very vital reasons indeed; perhaps not wholly unconnected with
+Inspector Nashby.
+
+He put up the window sash and leaned out.  The night, was wild and
+rather heavy, and a moist earthy odour came up from the saturation of
+the fallen leaves in the wet woodland.  Away on the bank, up towards the
+head of the long pond, a fox barked several times.  He liked the sound,
+he liked all the sounds of the lonely night, and when an owl floated out
+on noiseless pinions and hooted beneath the murky sky--he could just
+make out its shadowy shape--that too, fitted in with his mood.  There
+was a moon, a feeble one, and concealed behind the prevailing mistiness,
+but in such light as it afforded he could pick out the boardings which
+held up the steps of the footpath leading up to the sluice.  And on one
+of these the round stone stood out just discernible.
+
+Just discernible!  To his gaze--to his then mood--it seemed the one
+thing discernible--it and the thing that it held--the thing that it
+entombed.  And the pointed roundness of that thing seemed to rise from
+the earth and gleam dull white in the lack-lustre of the night.
+
+There it had lain for weeks, and for weeks, almost nightly, as now, he
+had gazed out upon the tomb of it--just as he was doing now--with a
+strange, uneasy, but wholly compelling fascination.  Why had he left it
+there all this time?  Any chance movement, on anybody's part, might
+dislodge the stone.  Why, his niece had slipped on it, the first day she
+had been at Heath Hover!  The time had come to bury this thing--this
+accursed thing--far away from any possibility of it being unearthed--at
+any rate in his lifetime.  After that it would not matter.
+
+A stout bag, a stone or two, and the deepest centre of Plane Pond would
+custody it until the crack of doom.  And yet--and yet--somehow he had
+never been able to bring himself to touch it again.  Was it that some
+instinct moved him to decide that the best hiding place for anything--or
+anybody--was the least likely hiding place?  If so, the middle of that
+path stairway assuredly was that.
+
+The observation, of which he had spoken laughingly, contemptuously to
+his niece, was another factor in the situation.  All shut in as the
+place was, Mervyn knew that he could never absolutely count upon a
+single moment when he could safely declare himself free from such
+observation.  In the day time he certainly could not.  In the hanging
+woods, on the road, anywhere, there was always the possibility of the
+presence of those who could see him while he could not see them.
+
+But what about the dark--the night time?
+
+Simple enough--doesn't it seem?  But there was that about the thing that
+he wanted--or might have wanted--to remove--that rendered the effecting
+of that process in the dark out of the question.  Yet, all things
+considered, as he told himself here, to-night, not for the first time--
+why should he trouble his head about it at all?  Why should he not let
+well alone?
+
+A life of solitude and self-concentration breeds a--well, a not
+altogether satisfactory state of mind; which for present purposes may be
+taken to mean that this thing had got upon Mervyn's mind.  It was too
+close--too near to him altogether.  He would fain have known it farther
+away.  Furthermore, there were all sorts of possibilities shrouding
+around the fateful thing which were wholly outside of such
+considerations as Inspector Nashby, and other people--up to date.  And
+since the advent of his niece, with her youth and brightness, and above
+all, affection--which he had seen growing day by day to irradiate his
+life--the necessity of getting rid entirely and completely of this
+fateful horror had been growing upon him more and more.
+
+He listened.  No sound came from the other side of the partition.  The
+girl had gone to sleep then, comfortably, calmly, as he thought she
+would.  Some impulse now drew him to effect what he had long been
+contemplating, to remove that sinister thing beyond all chance of human
+eye ever falling upon it again.  Everything favoured this.  The night
+was here, and the night was not too dark, while just dark enough.
+Another instinct told him that now was the time, now was his chance.
+
+He pulled out a drawer--noiselessly, then another drawer.  Yes--here was
+what he sought--a pair of thick gloves; but--it was an old pair, and the
+ends of some of the fingers were in holes.  He looked at them dubiously.
+There was a great deal underlying the fact of those gloves being in
+holes, it seemed.  Then he put them on.
+
+He listened again--intently.  Still no sound on the dead, soundless
+night.  He fancied he could hear the girl's soft, regular breathing, in
+tranquil slumber, through the partition.  That was just what he wanted.
+He had told her he would be there, if she had occasion to call him; but
+now, what he wanted to effect would take some time, nearly half an hour
+perhaps.  What if she were to awake suddenly, in an agony of fear, and
+to call for him, and he were away in the dark woodland path up towards
+the pond head!  Well, there were chances in everything.
+
+He listened again--then opened the door silently, and went down the
+stairs, keeping to the end of each step to minimise the chances of it
+creaking.  As noiselessly as possible he opened the hall door, then
+listened again.
+
+All was still.  He could hear the ticking of the clock in the
+living-room, and to him it sounded loud.  But for the rest nothing was
+audible.  He went out, and the faint puff of the night air wafted round
+his face.  All was still.  Not even the ululating voice of an owl, in or
+over the dark woods, floated out to break it.  Mervyn realised that his
+nerves were somewhat athrill as he placed his first step on the path
+stairway.  And yet--and yet--at his age, and with his experience, why
+should they be?  It was ridiculous.
+
+There was the stone.  One wrench, and what he wanted would be in his
+hand.  He looked around, not quickly nor directly, but in a casual
+manner; taking fully a minute over the process.  But as he turned to the
+stone again a kind of influence seemed to spring from it, almost
+assuming the tones of a voice.  "You cannot.  You dare not," it seemed
+to say.  Then came reaction.
+
+"Oh, can't I?  Daren't I?" he repeated scornfully to himself.  "We'll
+see."
+
+He bent over the stone now, at the same time drawing the finger ends of
+his holed gloves as far forward as possible, as though to cover as far
+as might be, the defects of those same holes.  Then he stood upright
+again, and continued his stroll up towards the sluice.  For ever so
+faint a sound had caught his ear.
+
+"Good evenin' Mr Mervyn, good evenin' sur.  Fine evenin' to get the
+air, sure-ly."
+
+"Ah, good-evening, Pierce.  Yes.  A breath of air makes you sleep better
+in this February weather, eh?"
+
+Sir John Tullibard's head keeper had been looking up the pond.  Now he
+turned, the glow of the bowl of his short clay pipe showing dull red in
+the gloom.
+
+"That it do, sur.  But I could sleep middlin' without that," answered
+the man, with a grin.
+
+"I'd say something about a pint of ale, Pierce," went on Mervyn, "but I
+don't want to risk disturbing Miss Seward.  She sleeps light, and--well,
+do you know, I'm afraid she's getting a bit of a scare on about the old
+place.  I only hope no one has been chattering over all the old silly
+yarns about it to her, eh?"
+
+"That haven't I, sur," answered the man.
+
+"Well, get the pint to-morrow instead of to-night," said Mervyn, and
+something changed hands.  "Still, I believe she must have overheard some
+one chattering; yet I've rubbed the fear of the Lord into old Joe about
+it."
+
+"Thank'ee sur.  No, I don't know as how anything of the sort could have
+been nabbled around.  Folks have been mighty careful since the strange
+gent's affair, sur.  They won't talk--not they.  Think maybe they'll be
+`pulled' over that."
+
+"Do they.  Well, long may they go on thinking so at that rate.  But, do
+you know, I'm rather getting fed up with that business myself, and am
+always wishing to Heaven the poor chap had picked out some one else's
+hospitable roof to go and end up under, or that I hadn't heard, and had
+left him where he was in the first instance.  It would have come to the
+same thing in the long run--or rather the very short run--and would have
+saved me no end of bother."
+
+"Why, yes, sur, it would have done that sure-ly.  Thank'ee again, sur,
+and good-night."
+
+Mervyn had judged it time to go in.  And as he walked back over the
+fateful stone again he found himself wondering whether the keeper's
+presence there was really accidental after all.  Was Nashby privily
+employing the whole countryside--or such of it as was trustworthy--to
+keep watch on him--tireless watch by night as well as by day?  Further,
+had Pierce actually seen him stop and bend over the stone?  That would
+finish things.  Mervyn's head and forehead were not quite dry as he
+noiselessly re-entered his front door, and that in spite of the now
+chilly atmosphere of the night.
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+THE COMING OF HELSTON VARNE.
+
+"I'm thinking we can about decide to give up the Heath Hover business as
+a bad job," said Inspector Nashby to his auxiliary, one night as they
+sat over whisky and water and pipes, in the inspector's snug private
+quarters in Clancehurst.
+
+"Are you?" said the other, in a matter of fact way.
+
+"Why, yes.  There's nothing in it, absolutely no clue whatever.  So far,
+no one has come forward to make even so much as an enquiry as to the
+identity of the dead man, and, if you remember, he looked foreign.
+Mervyn, too, said he talked with a slightly foreign accent.  Now all
+that goes to show the thing couldn't well have concerned Mervyn.
+Where's the motive?  That's what I want to locate.  I'm all for motive.
+Show motive, and it won't be long before you get your case right home.
+That's what I say--always have said."
+
+"Motive--eh?"
+
+"Yes.  Motive.  Now what the deuce motive could Mervyn have had for
+doing away with this chap?  First he fishes him out of the ice, in the
+middle of a dead cold snow-stormy night, at some risk to himself; then
+he takes him in and does for him in the most hospitable manner."
+
+"`Does for him'--Is that a joke, Nashby?"
+
+"Well, no.  But what I'm getting at is--supposing Mervyn had a motive
+for wanting this fellow in Kingdom Come, all he had to do was to leave
+him in the water.  See?  He needn't have gone to the bother of hauling
+him out at all."
+
+"So Stewart seemed to think," was the answer.  Stewart had been the
+speaker's predecessor in the private investigation of the case, but had
+come pretty much to the same conclusion that the local police official
+had, that it was hardly worth while going on with.  This man had then
+appeared on the scene to take it up, rather to Nashby's astonishment.
+To the latter he was an "outside" man, but he had come properly
+accredited.  To tell the truth, he had come as rather a nuisance.
+Nashby wanted the discovery of whatever there was to discover to his own
+credit.  He did not relish any one from outside coming in to benefit by
+his gleanings.
+
+"I don't want to say anything against Stewart," went on the last
+speaker.  "I expect he's an excellent man, in his line.  In fact, from
+what I hear, I'm sure he is--in his line."
+
+"Well, but--what the devil good are any one of us if it isn't in his
+line?" said the inspector, feeling rather nettled, but pushing the cut
+glass decanter--an ingredient of an appreciative public testimonial
+Tantalus--towards the other as though to cover it.  The said other might
+have smiled pityingly--he felt like it--but did not.
+
+"That sounds conclusive," he answered.  "But--it's just when you get off
+your `line' that you make discoveries.  Now you know I'm not talking
+through my hat.  I've had experiences--not in this country--that most of
+you here never get.  I don't say it to brag, mind, but as a bald
+statement of fact."
+
+"I know that, Mr Varne," said Nashby, deferentially.  "Well, we don't
+get 'em, and it's not our fault if we don't."
+
+"Of course it isn't.  It's all a question of opportunity.  There are at
+least ten men in the world who would stretch a point to get me put out
+of the way, and at least four more who are vowed to do it.  Out of these
+at least one will succeed sooner or later.  But in that case it will
+puzzle you, and all the Yard, to find the motive."
+
+"You don't say so!" said the inspector, gazing at the speaker, with a
+new access of veneration.  "As we're alone I don't mind admitting I'm
+only a plain man who's worked his way up, but--sink me if I wouldn't
+rather be out of the force than have so many desperate scoundrels sworn
+to do me down some time or other.  Here, you see, we run some one to
+earth--he does his stretch and there's an end of it.  No malice borne--
+and all that."
+
+The man who had been named as Varne could not repress the smile this
+time, at what to him was the simple grooviness of this country
+policeman, as he defined him in his own mind.  But he managed to make
+the smile a good-natured one.
+
+"Ah, well, there are shaggier parts of the world than this, Nashby," he
+said, mixing his glass again.  "Here's to the Heath Hover mystery."
+
+"And its unravelling," answered Nashby, raising his own glass.
+
+"I've been here--let's see, how long have I been here?  Three days--and
+a half, to be strictly accurate, and I've made one discovery, but only
+one."
+
+"What's that?" said the inspector, brisking up.
+
+"Well, it's what I came in to tell you about.  But--don't let it go to
+the rest of the Force."
+
+"Not me," was the emphatic reply.
+
+"Well then, Mervyn is hiding something."
+
+"Hiding something?  Not the thing that did the job?  Why there was no
+trace of any injury about the man."
+
+"No doubt.  But Mervyn is hiding something.  When I find that something
+we shall have the key to the whole mystery."
+
+"Well, we didn't search the whole house," said Nashby.  "It would take
+about a week to do that, and only three or four rooms were used at all.
+We searched that weird old family vault of a cellar though.  There's
+nothing loose there.  It's firm everywhere.  He showed us over it
+himself."
+
+"Of course he did.  He'd have been a fool if he hadn't.  But what he's
+hiding isn't in the house at all.  It's outside."
+
+"Outside?"
+
+Helston Varne nodded.
+
+"Has a smack of that Moat Farm affair," said Nashby, "only there they
+had something definite to find--a body.  Here we've nothing.  But how
+did you get at that for a clue?"
+
+"I've been down here three days--and a half, to be strictly accurate;
+there's nothing like accuracy.  Yet I've hit upon that much.  The other
+day I thought I'd hit upon everything, but I hadn't quite.  It was just
+one of those exciting moments when you miss a thing just by a
+hairsbreadth, as it were.  But it's getting very warm--very warm
+indeed."
+
+Nashby filled a fresh pipe and said nothing.  He was looking at the
+other enviously.  Helston Varne's reputation, among the secret few, was
+prodigious.  If the scent was really getting very warm from his point of
+view, why then the mystery was as good as solved.  But then, Nashby
+wanted the credit of solving it to be his own.
+
+He wondered if Varne would manage things so that it might be.  There was
+a good deal of the amateur about Helston Varne he had been given to
+understand, clever, marvellously clever as he had proved himself.  At
+any rate, he was independent of material emolument, or at any rate
+seemed so.  He seemed good-natured too.  Perhaps whatever discovery he
+made he would contrive to let him--Nashby--get the benefit of some
+appreciable share in it.
+
+The other smoked on in silence, the lamplight full on his strong,
+sun-browned, clear-cut face--a sun-brown that showed he had won his
+reputation in tougher climates than this--as he had hinted to the
+inspector.  Moreover, there was a marked difference between the two men
+which defined class distinction at a glance.
+
+"Anything more known about this young lady who's stopping at Heath
+Hover, Nashby, beyond what you told me?" said Varne suddenly.
+
+"Why, yes.  I got at something fresh to-day, only to-day."  And the
+inspector began to bristle up with a sense, as it were, of renewed
+importance.  "Yes, only to-day, and I was going to tell you, but I was
+waiting to hear what you had to say first, Mr Varne," he added
+deferentially.  "She's Mervyn's niece right enough, on her mother's
+side.  Her father suicided.  Jumped off a train, after taking a couple
+of thousand pound accident insurance tickets, which he handed to her,
+with a joking remark, overheard unfortunately for him--for them--by a
+station inspector on the platform.  Railway company repudiated
+liability, and there you are."
+
+"Clumsy--very," pronounced the other, musingly.  "Lord, what fools there
+are in the world, Nashby.  Why, there were half-a-dozen ways of working
+that trick, perfectly successfully and carrying far more money with them
+too."
+
+"Then she went as a music teacher in a suburban villa, and got cleared
+out; I suppose she was too pretty, and the old woman got jealous."
+
+"I don't know about that part of it, but she certainly is pretty," said
+Varne.  "She's more.  She's lovely; and so absolutely uncommon looking.
+Well?"
+
+"Then she went to stay with a girl friend--and got ill.  Her uncle heard
+of her, and got her down to keep house for him.  So there you are again.
+I heard the particulars only this morning.  The Yard can find out
+everything, you see."
+
+Whether the other saw or not, he smiled, enigmatically.  Perhaps he was
+wondering whether "The Yard" knew as much about what his then colleague
+had been telling him as he did himself.
+
+"She wasn't there at the time of the--happening," he said.  "No, not
+till--what?  Nearly a month afterwards?  And now she has been there over
+a fortnight.  No, Nashby.  Whatever the Yard can find out--or can't,"--
+again that smile came forward, "you can rule Miss--er--Seward out of
+this business altogether."
+
+The inspector felt a trifle disappointed.  He thought he had found a
+new, and complicating, and rather interesting element in the case.  He
+was a little inclined to feel rebellious against Helston Varne's
+opinion, but then he had a very considerable respect for Helston Varne.
+
+"The tale about Heath Hover--it's rather interesting," went on the
+latter.  "I might have said extraordinary, but then, I don't know.  I've
+met with just such extraordinary cases in the course of my experience,
+and have been the means of unravelling at least two of them.  Now I'm
+going to try and see if this one will hang up at all on the same peg as
+our mystery, but--I don't know, I don't know."
+
+He had subsided into a meditative, almost dreamy tone, gazing into the
+fire, and emitting slow puffs of smoke.  Nashby was eyeing him with a
+touch of increased veneration--likewise expectation.  He was hoping to
+get those narratives before their evening had closed.
+
+"Have another whisky," he said, jumping up with alacrity.  "I'm sorry,
+I'm sure.  I ought to have seen you were empty."
+
+"Thanks.  By the way, do you mind telling me again what is precisely the
+source of scare that hangs round Heath Hover?"
+
+Inspector Nashby looked as if he rather did mind, for he seemed to
+hesitate.
+
+"Oh, it's only a lot of countryside superstition," he said.  "But no one
+who took the place has ever been able to stick it long.  I don't know
+either, that any one has ever _seen_ anything.  I think they only
+_hear_."
+
+The other nodded.
+
+"Just so.  Reminds me of one of the cases I was just now referring to,
+one I was instrumental in clearing up.  That was a matter of sound.  I
+think I shall really have to obtain entrance to Heath Hover.  You say
+this man gets it rent free?"
+
+"At a nominal rent, yes."
+
+"Well, why doesn't the owner pull it down, and run up another house on
+another site?"
+
+"Because--to put the matter nakedly--he's afraid to."
+
+"Afraid to?"
+
+"Yes.  Afraid it would bring him bad luck--fatally bad luck.  Old Sir
+John Tullibard's a bit of a crank, and believes in that sort of thing.
+What's more, he's rather proud of owning a place with that kind of
+reputation."
+
+"And that door--what did you say it does?"
+
+"Why, it opens of itself, when something is going to happen.  It's a
+curious thing that Mervyn should have sworn it did this very thing the
+night of this double barrelled event.  But he did--and stuck to it."
+
+"Yes.  It's certainly curious.  Mervyn doesn't strike me as the sort of
+man who'd decline to believe his eyesight.  He's rather a hard-headed
+looking chap I should say, and I can't get anything out of the
+surrounding yokels about it.  I've expended--let me see--at least two
+half crowns in the neighbouring pubs during the three days--and a half--
+since I came, trying to make them talk.  But they shut up like steel
+traps when you try and get them on the subject of Heath Hover."
+
+"So they would," said Nashby, "and for the reason that they hold it to
+be dead unlucky even to talk about the yarns that hang around the
+place."
+
+"Oh," and Varne smiled.  He had noticed that very reluctance about
+Nashby himself.
+
+"Do you believe there's anything in all that?" he said, facing the other
+with a very direct look.  "You, yourself?"
+
+"Well, the fact is, Varne--and there's no denying it--very curious
+things do happen in some places.  Things that there's no explaining or
+clearing up."
+
+"I agree with you, Nashby--as to the first.  Very curious things do
+happen in some places--yes, very curious things.  But as to there being
+no explaining them, or clearing them up--why I don't go with you there.
+Now look here--I don't say it to brag--but given time, and no
+interference, _and_ it being made worth my while, I undertake to
+dis-ghost every haunted house in England."
+
+His keen face had lighted up.  Nashby looked at him rather admiringly.
+The latter was an ordinary square-headed, broad-built policeman, who,
+unarmed, would have advanced to arrest an armed criminal without the
+smallest hesitation or wavering.  But he was country born and bred, and
+country superstition is an ingrained thing.
+
+"Well, Mr Varne, at that rate there's a new line in front of you, and
+no mistake, and it ought to be a paying one," he rejoined.  "Why not
+begin on Heath Hover for one?"
+
+"Because none of my conditions would apply to it.  Time--that might--no
+interference, that certainly would not, for I should have to stay in the
+house for a while.  And--making it worth it, would apply less still,
+since this Mervyn is only a tenant, doesn't seem to care a damn about
+the haunting part, and is poor into the bargain you say?"
+
+"Yes.  He's hasn't got too much rhino.  He was something in India and
+retired on a pension.  He commuted about half of it to run an invention
+which he thought would make his fortune, and it didn't."
+
+"Of course not.  Inventions have been known to make fortunes, but
+practically never for the inventor.  Now how could I get a look in at
+Heath Hover?  It wouldn't do as being concerned in this case, you know."
+
+"Oh Lord, no," said the other, with some alacrity.  "Why, it's supposed
+to be dead and forgotten, and that's just the stage at which we expect
+to be able to get something out of it--if we ever do at all, that is."
+
+"Hasn't he got any old oak in the place?  Panelling, doors--that sort of
+thing?  Might work in on the connoisseur, scientific lay, don't you
+see?"
+
+"I don't know.  Perhaps.  Yes, now I think of it there's rather a rum
+old fireplace.  It's in the room where the door is, too, and, now I
+think of it again, the door itself is rather a quaint affair, with a
+curious handle, and lock, and all that.  You could `make up' a bit.  You
+know--look like a sort of scientific professor, and all that."
+
+"No.  I don't think I'll make up.  I'll just chance it as I am.  And I
+think, Nashby, that within the next day or two I shall have found out
+all about the inside of Heath Hover--as far as it concerns our case."
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+OVERREACHINGS.
+
+It might have been somewhere in the middle of the morning, or a trifle
+earlier, that Mervyn, from his bedroom window descried a well-looking,
+comfortably-dressed stranger leisurely descending the stair-like path
+which led down from the sluice, and him he eyed with curiosity, for
+visitors were scarce.
+
+He himself, being unseen, was able to take in every detail of the new
+arrival's outward appearance with all the more ease and accuracy.  He
+noted for instance that the other had a keen, clear, sunburnt face, and
+a light, firm, easy step, that showed the very pink of condition, that
+he was tall, and carried himself well, and then he fell to wondering who
+the devil he was and what he wanted.  Some friend of Melian's perhaps,
+possibly a former admirer--and somehow the idea of such a contingency
+seemed unpalatable.  Here they were--the two of them--as jolly as
+possible together; he, at any rate, didn't want any interloping nuisance
+from outside.
+
+But from that his mind flew off to another conjecture--one less
+palatable still.  He had had about enough of mysterious strangers, he
+told himself.  What if this one had come on the same sort of errand, and
+with the thought he slipped his Browning pistol into a handy pocket, and
+made up his mind to keep the other man carefully in front of him.
+Likewise he took his time about admitting the said other man.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm taking rather a liberty," began the latter.  "The fact
+is, Mr Mervyn, I'm particularly interested in old houses, old
+furniture, old panelling, and such like, and I have heard a good deal
+about Heath Hover in that line.  Allow me to introduce myself,"--
+tendering a card.
+
+"Yes?  Come in, Mr--Helston Varne," said the other, having glanced at
+it.  "There are odds and ends of old sticks, but they are for the most
+part stowed away in unused rooms that would take about a week's dusting
+to render fit for entrance.  That's a quaint old fireplace, if you
+notice."
+
+"I should think it was," answered Varne, vividly interested.  And then
+he expatiated in technical terms, which increasingly bored his host and
+made the latter wish him at the devil more heartily than ever.  That was
+the worst of these collectors and antiquarians and people, they were
+always ramming their jargon down unappreciative throats.  It was a pity
+Melian was not on hand, he began to think.  She had an eye to all that
+sort of thing, and could answer with knowledge.  And then he suddenly
+decided that his own boredom was the lesser evil.  The stranger was a
+well-looking man--a fine looking man--and spoke with a pleasant voice
+and refined accent.  Her uncle preferred Melian fancy free, at any rate
+for some time to come.  Were she here, these two would be finding out
+tastes in common.  Yes, on the whole, he was glad she had driven into
+Clancehurst with old Joe after breakfast.  Up till then he had not been
+glad; in fact, hardly was she out of sight than he had regretted not
+having accompanied her.  It was rare indeed that he failed to accompany
+her anywhere; but that morning he had felt somewhat out of sorts.
+
+The stranger passed from one thing to another, admiring the panelling
+and discanting thereon.  Then he said:
+
+"I should like to take another view of the house from outside, Mr
+Mervyn.  It's marvellously picturesque as seen from the road, and now
+I've seen the interior I shall be able to read new beauties into it."
+
+"Certainly," assented Mervyn, beginning to think the speaker was a
+little over enthusiastic, or a little cracked--only he didn't look the
+last.  "We'll go up to the road.  The path you came down is the
+shortest."
+
+They went up, Mervyn contriving that the other should lead.  When they
+gained the sluice, Varne stood expatiating afresh, on gables and old
+chimney stacks.  His host was more bored than ever, and was wishing to
+this and to that he would straightway take himself off as he had come.
+Would he?
+
+"That's a curious old door I noticed in the corner of your room, Mr
+Mervyn," he said, when he had exhausted his instructive technicalities,
+which Mervyn had defined to himself as a damned boring prosy lecture.
+"If I might venture to trespass upon your kindness for a minute or two
+further I should so greatly like to examine it.  The fact is," he went
+on, "I'm quite a stranger in these parts, I found a homely little pub
+quite by the merest chance, _The Woodcock_, at Upper Gidding, homely but
+clean--you know it, I dare say--and I concluded to rest there for a day
+or two, and look around this lovely bit of country.  I've got a bicycle
+with me, but I walked over here to-day."
+
+"Oh," groaned Mervyn to himself.  "That means I shall have to ask the
+fool to stay lunch, I suppose."
+
+"The fool" had turned, and was looking up the pond.
+
+"Is this--excuse me, Mr Mervyn, it must be.  Is this the place they
+were telling me about where an unknown man was bravely rescued from
+drowning under the ice in the middle of the night, by--by, I am sure,
+yourself?"  And he turned to his host with a pleasant suggestion of
+admiration in his eyes.
+
+"This is the place you mean, Mr--Varne.  But I don't know there's
+anything particularly `brave' in shoving out a ladder for the other fool
+to claw hold of."
+
+He spoke shortly--almost rudely.  This he recognised in time.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm rather abrupt, Mr Varne," he explained.  "If so, excuse
+me.  The fact is, I've been more than `fed-up' with that particular
+episode, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, I'm dead sick of the
+barest references to it.  It was fairly unpleasant to me having the poor
+devil dying in my house, and all the nuisance of inquest and police
+investigations, and the rest of it--as you can imagine.  Now the whole
+thing's a thing of the past, and I want to forget all about it."
+
+"Quite so, Mr Mervyn, quite so.  It is I who must apologise."
+
+"Oh, no need for that.  If you're ready I shall be happy to show you
+that door."
+
+"That will be very good of you."
+
+They went down the path again, Mervyn still contriving that his visitor
+should lead the way.  Halfway down, the latter stopped short.
+
+"Here is another point that hitherto has escaped me," he said.  "That
+foreground of chimney stack, thrown out by the background of
+tree-masses, leafless now, but even with a characteristic beauty at
+that--`wine-coloured woods' some one called it--I forget who--now
+there's a picture for you, one that a Yeend King for instance, would be
+at his best with, and still more so when it's a soaring wall of
+foliage."
+
+"No doubt," agreed Mervyn.  And then he felt glad that the stranger had
+his back turned full towards him, for even he could hardly restrain a
+sudden, if ever so slight change of colour caused by that which now set
+all his pulses humming.  For the said stranger's right foot as he stood,
+was planted, firmly planted, on a stone, a rounded stone half embedded
+in the earth, and that foot was obviously, though stealthily, trying
+whether that stone was easily movable, or not movable at all.  And with
+this consciousness a sudden resolve had come upon Mervyn.
+
+"Yes, it's all you say," he went on, in an equable tone.  "Are you an
+artist, may I ask, as well as a connoisseur in antiquities?"
+
+"Oh well, only as amateur.  I have done a little with the brush--but,
+only as an amateur."
+
+They had re-entered the house, chatting lightly, easily.  Then the
+visitor made a set at the door in the corner.
+
+"Yes.  That's something of a bit of old work," he pronounced admiringly.
+"Why there are connoisseurs who would give tall prices for that bit of
+wood, I can tell you, Mr Mervyn."
+
+"Then I wish to the devil `that bit of wood' belonged to me," returned
+Mervyn, with something of a sour grin.  "They could have it and welcome.
+One door's as good as another to me, as long as it shuts tight and
+keeps draughts out.  I'd much rather have the `tall prices.'  Will you
+take a whisky and soda?"
+
+"No thanks.  I rarely touch spirits in the daytime.  A `nightcap' before
+turning in is a very good thing.  But--you're very kind."
+
+He was feeling the graining of the door with his finger nails, then he
+turned the handle.  This he held admiringly.
+
+"Why, what a splendid piece of antique.  This handle is worth a lot.
+And, what's on the other side?"
+
+"Only a black hole of a cellar, where I don't keep anything.  It's too
+damp, for one thing.  Like to see it?"
+
+"Immensely."
+
+"Right.  I'll get a bit of candle and the key."
+
+Having done both, Mervyn opened the door.
+
+"Mind the steps," he said, holding the candle over the head of the other
+and still contriving that he should be in advance.  "There are ten of
+them."
+
+"All right.  I can see--What the--?"
+
+He broke off, turning to rush back.  But it was too late.  With the soft
+but quick closing of the door above and behind him, Helston Varne
+realised that he had made a fool of himself--as Nashby had not done; but
+this he did not know, for Nashby had not told him quite everything.  Now
+he stood in dense, impenetrable pitchy blackness--and feeling very damp
+and chill at that.
+
+"Well I'm damned?" he ejaculated to himself.  "Well I _am_ damned."  And
+sitting down on a cold stone step he began to think the matter out.
+
+His gaoler the while, saying nothing, calmly withdrew the key from the
+lock and put it in his pocket.  Then he went leisurely to the front door
+and looked out.  There was no sign of anybody moving on the strip of
+lonely road above.  He stood apparently unconcerned on the sluice, but
+in reality, listening intently.  There were twitterings of small birds
+and the sweet singing of an early thrush, but of human footsteps or
+voices, or of wheels, there was no sound.  Then he descended, equally
+leisurely.  On one of the earth steps he paused; then, drawing out his
+handkerchief, blew his nose.  The handkerchief dropped, by accident.  He
+stooped to pick it up; was equally leisurely over the process too.
+Finally, when he did pick it up, he stood for a moment, stamping as
+though in the most natural way in the world to warm his feet--or one
+foot--upon a stone.  Then he returned to the house, but he had forgotten
+to return his handkerchief to his pocket.  He was carrying it--in a
+somewhat absent minded manner--in his hand.  Incidentally, he was
+thinking that it was not an unmixed evil that old Judy should be
+suffering from a return of her "roomatics" that day, and should have
+remained "to whoam."  There was no one at Heath Hover but himself--and
+his prisoner.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The latter, meanwhile, was beginning to experience what the expression
+"outer darkness" meant, for assuredly he was now in it.  No glimmer of
+light--not the very faintest, was there to relieve it.  Black as
+impenetrable pitch.  He waited till his eyesight should have been
+accustomed to the change to see if any stray dim thread came in from
+anywhere; a grating, a ventilator, what not?  But none came.  The door
+itself might have been cemented into the wall for any thread of light
+that came from it.  But Varne felt no alarm.  He was unarmed, but on
+that account felt no misgiving; "What was the game?" was the thought
+that held possession of his mind.
+
+He struck a wax vesta and looked around.  He was about halfway down the
+flight of stone steps.  The walls of the vault glistened with slime and
+damp in the flickering light.  Nashby had described the place exactly.
+He struck another.  Yes.  It was all solid, massive masonry--hard,
+unyielding.  But here he was--at about twelve midday--entombed in a
+dungeon of blackest night.  He began to feel interested.  But,
+meanwhile, it was cold--devilish cold.
+
+Then, being there, he thought he might as well take a look round this--
+cellar, Mervyn had called it--on his own, and to this end he cautiously
+descended to the bottom of the stone stairs.  But of wax vestas he had
+only a limited supply, and it behoved him to be careful with them.
+Still he managed to obtain a good reconnaissance of the floor and walls,
+enough to bear out Nashby's description of the place.
+
+He returned up the steps.  The door, he noticed, was quite smooth on
+this side, with no handle, and--no key hole; so that any one shut in, as
+he was, might shout or call till the crack of doom.  It fitted its
+aperture like a slab.
+
+For the first time Varne began to feel a little uneasy.  He was also
+feeling more than a little cold.  The place had almost the temperature
+of an ice-vault.  What if Mervyn had purposely shut him in and proposed
+to leave him here until cold and starvation had done their work?  After
+all, he could pretend he had done the thing for a practical joke, and it
+would be difficult to prove the contrary.  And the worst of it was he--
+Varne--had given nobody the slightest idea as to where he intended
+going.  Even Nashby would not have occasion to miss him--not for some
+days at any rate.  But it certainly was getting most confoundedly cold.
+
+He thought he would try the effect of knocking, and to this end got out
+the hardest thing about him, a substantial pocket knife to wit.  Surely
+the rat-tat-tat would carry through the door.  He also called out
+several times.  But--no answer.
+
+He began to feel resentful--grim.  Had he carried a pistol he would have
+felt himself justified in blowing the lock of the door away--if he could
+locate it, that is.  But he had not.  Really, this was past a joke.
+And--the cold!
+
+A very unpleasant idea now struck Varne.  What if this vault really were
+a secret refrigerating chamber, in which, for purposes of his own, his
+"host" now intended to reduce him to frozen meat?  He had taken pretty
+accurate stock of Mervyn during their brief intercourse, and had formed
+the conclusion that he was a man who would be quite capable of such a
+thing, given an adequate motive.  It was a rotten way of ending a
+startlingly successful, though not much blazoned career, decided Helston
+Varne, sitting there in the inky blackness, his teeth now chattering
+like the proverbial castanets.  But he almost told himself that he
+deserved it for being such a poisonous fool as to allow himself to be
+entrapped in so transparently callow a fashion.
+
+The shadowless ink of the atmosphere weighed him down more and more, and
+strong man as he was, he felt that it was affecting his nerve.  And the
+cold!  His theory of the refrigerating chamber had now become a fixed
+idea.  Oh, for light--for warmth!  He must have been hours in that
+dreadful vault.
+
+He would make another trial.  With the handle of the pocket knife he
+hammered again and again upon the door with all his might.  Also he
+shouted, but his ordinarily strong voice sounded in his now appalled
+ears a mere quavering rumble.  A moment's pause to listen, and--the door
+opened.
+
+Mervyn was standing looking at him with a faintly enquiring, half-amused
+expression on his face, Helston Varne almost staggered into the blessed
+light of day.
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+ANOTHER LIGHT.
+
+The two men stood looking at each other, and their expressions of
+countenance would have furnished a study.
+
+"Well, Mr Varne?" began Mervyn: "I hope you've effected a thoroughly
+exhaustive and satisfactory investigation."
+
+"Fairly, thanks," said the other, pretending to enter into the humour of
+the thing, while in reality feeling grim and resentful.  "But it's
+rather cold in there, you know."
+
+"Yes, I do know.  I was admiring your scientific enthusiasm in the cause
+of `old stones,' as my niece calls them, that induced you to stick it
+all that time."
+
+"Induced me?  Why I couldn't get out," was the short reply.
+
+"No.  You can't open that door from the inside.  It'd be the most deadly
+place to get shut up in if no one knew you were there.  Rather."
+
+There seemed a latent meaning in the words, at least, so Helston Varne
+found himself reading them.
+
+"Well, you'd better have a whisky and soda now, or at any rate a copious
+mouthful of three star--that'll warm you up more," went on Mervyn in the
+most matter of fact way, and diving into a sideboard he produced both.
+This time Varne did not decline.  The revivifying warmth, the blessed
+light of day, were fast counteracting his resentment.  Still, not
+altogether, for he said in a half amazed, half joking manner:
+
+"I suppose I must congratulate you on carrying out a practical joke
+thoroughly when you do undertake one, Mr Mervyn.  But at the same time
+it might prove dangerous with some people.  According to British law
+turning a key on an independent fellow-subject is a ground for action
+for false imprisonment."
+
+"Law--did you say?" returned Mervyn, in a gouty, gusty sort of way.
+"Why, I was administering law what time you were being smacked in the
+nursery--or ought to have been."
+
+This was a pretty nasty one for Helston Varne, somewhat famed clearer-up
+of mysteries.  But he took it equably.  The other eyed him not in the
+least kindly.
+
+"Who turned any key on you?" he said abruptly.
+
+"Well, I was locked in there, wasn't I?"
+
+"Not by me--and certainly no one has been in here since," answered
+Mervyn.  "Just try that door handle, will you?"
+
+"I don't know that I will," laughed the other, again becoming alive to
+the importance of keeping up his character of artistic--and
+unprofessional stranger.  "I think I've had about enough of it.  There's
+something uncanny about it.  I'd better keep away from it."
+
+"All right then.  Look here," Mervyn went to the door and turned the
+handle--there was no key in the lock--then opened it slightly.
+
+"That's all right, Mr Mervyn," answered the other, with a jolly laugh.
+"I wasn't serious in what I said.  Besides, I can take a joke as well as
+anybody.  Don't you worry about that."
+
+"I thought it only the thing to leave you undisturbed while you made
+your investigations," rejoined Mervyn, "but seem to have left you too
+long.  And now, if you're ready for lunch--so am I.  It's later than
+usual, but there's no point in waiting any longer."
+
+Varne glanced at the clock opposite.  It was nearly two.  When he had
+entered his recent prison it was just half past twelve.  He had spent an
+hour and a half nearly, down there in the cold and darkness.  Heavens!
+and it seemed eight times that period.  His resentment partially revived
+with the recollection, and he was about to refuse, when a sound struck
+upon his ears, the sweet, clear, full voice of a girl.  That decided
+him.
+
+"Well, thanks, Mr Mervyn, I think I am too, after my morning's
+experiences," and he laughed again.
+
+"We're late, Joe.  I told you we should be," the voice was saying.
+"You'd much better have let me drive.  Now bring in the things--you can
+put up the trap afterwards."
+
+The visitor, listening, thought he had never heard quite such a voice.
+And then its owner appeared.
+
+She came into the room mapped in large warm furs.  The day, though
+bright, carried a sharp tinge in the wind, and had imparted a delightful
+pink glow to her cheeks, and the blue eyes were dancing.  The visitor
+did not miss the effect of the straight firm walk, the erect carriage of
+the golden head, crowned with an exceedingly becoming toque.
+
+"Just fancy, Uncle Seward," she began--and then stopped short as she
+became alive to the presence of a stranger.  Her uncle introduced them.
+No stiff or conventional bow, but out went a long, gloved hand, in
+frank, easy fashion, and the straight glance of the blue eyes met those
+of the other, in which surprise and admiration would hardly be
+dissembled.  Helston Varne remembered his pronouncement upon her when
+talking with Nashby.  "She's lovely, and so uncommon looking."  Now it
+came home to him, that if possible, he had even then hardly done her
+justice.  A new light seemed likely to lead away from the Heath Hover
+mystery.
+
+"I suppose you've been into Clancehurst, Miss Seward," he said.  "Do you
+find the shops there fairly satisfactory?"
+
+"Oh yes--on the whole.  It's a jolly little place and has a ripping old
+church."
+
+"`Old stones,'" thought the guest to himself, with a smile.  Then aloud,
+"I hear you're a great antiquarian, Miss Seward."
+
+"I don't know about that, but I'm awfully keen on old architecture, and
+old art in general."
+
+"You've got a kindred spirit then, dear," said Mervyn.  "Mr Varne has
+come over to look at some of our antiquities.  He went into ecstasies
+over the door," with a nod behind him in that direction, and a very
+humorous look crinkling round the corners of his eyes.
+
+"Did you?" turning to the stranger, in her bright, brisk, natural
+manner.  "Yes, it's awfully quaint--but--there's a something about it.
+Did you go into the old cellar?  You did?" as she read the affirmative
+on the faces of both men.  "Well, didn't it give you the cold shivers?
+I can tell you it did me, the two or three times I've been into it.
+There must be a spook hidden away down there, but thank goodness that
+door is thick enough and heavy enough to keep it there."
+
+"But I thought spooks were traditionally independent of such trifles as
+bolts and bars, Miss Seward," said Varne with an amused smile.
+
+"Of course.  It's the moral effect, I suppose, for it's difficult to
+imagine anything being able to get through such a solid mass of oak as
+that.  But it's a splendid old door."
+
+She had shed her outer furs and had sat down to table.  Helston Varne
+was watching her keenly, though of course not seeming to do so.
+Whatever mystery Mervyn was mixed up in, this girl was entirely outside
+it, even as he had imparted to Nashby, and more than ever now was that
+opinion confirmed.  And with that sop to professionalism he dismissed
+the same, and fell to giving himself up to studying the rare,
+fascinating personality, thus unexpectedly unfolded before him.  But he
+turned the conversation on to what he saw was a very congenial topic
+with her, and soon she got launching Ruskin at him; and, glowing with
+her subject, talked not a bit as though she had never known of his
+existence half an hour ago.  Mervyn, the while, his sense of humour
+thoroughly tickled--although somewhat grimly so--was observing the pair,
+with an inward twinge of dissatisfaction, which, as his said sense of
+humour entirely enabled him to realise, was essentially selfish.  For
+his guest was an exceptionally good-looking man, who talked with
+knowledge, and well, moreover; and had--what for want of a better
+definition he defined as--a way about him.  And thinking thus, the side
+of the other's visit which had been with him all the morning and up till
+now, seemed to slide into a back seat.  What had ousted it was the
+consciousness of how Melian seemed to be "cottoning" to the engaging
+stranger.
+
+Then in the glow of a discussion which she was thoroughly enjoying, she
+got up suddenly to move some of the things.
+
+"The old woman who usually looks after us is shamming again, Mr Varne.
+At least, she isn't really shamming, but I always tease her by telling
+her she is," Melian explained.  "So I'm afraid it's a case of taking
+things as they are."
+
+Helston Varne at once scented a chance of further insight.  Now he could
+get, at first hand, what was rumoured at second--the reason why Mervyn
+never kept indoor servants.  But immediately he felt ashamed of the
+thought.  Professionalism under these circumstances could go hang; under
+them, if he couldn't sink the "shop," when could he?  In fact, if it
+came to that he would.
+
+Just then, taking advantage of the door being open, the little black
+kitten made its way in and jumped up on Melian's lap as she sat down
+again.
+
+"No, no, pooge-pooge, not _on_ the table," she said decisively,
+restraining a move on the part of the little thing to jump up there.
+"Uncle Seward has got you into bad ways--in fact, thoroughly spoiled
+you--and now you'll have to get out of them."
+
+"What a jolly little fluffy ball," said Helston Varne, thinking what a
+picture was here before him, these two graceful creatures, the human and
+the animal, every movement on the part of either one that of perfect
+prettiness and grace.
+
+"Do you like them, then?"  Melian asked, flashing her bright glance at
+him.
+
+"Yes, if only they would stay small."
+
+"I'm so glad.  But I think this one will, there are kinds, you know,
+that never grow large, and I like them best that way myself."  And then
+she launched forth into another favourite topic, and here again Varne
+met her on her own ground, and with knowledge.  And here again Mervyn
+was observant, and had misgivings.
+
+Now all of a sudden something he had been puzzling over took light, and
+it was caused by a casual remark on the part of this somewhat strangely
+formed acquaintance.
+
+"Have you been in India?" he interrupted, abruptly.
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the North West Provinces, and the Northern border."
+
+"Strange how things come back," went on Mervyn.  "Now your name is a bit
+uncommon, and I've been racking my brain box over it.  Do you happen to
+be related to Varne Coates, who was Commissioner at Baghnagar?"
+
+"Yes.  He's rather a near cousin of mine."
+
+"Look at that now.  He used to be one of my greatest friends.  Small
+world this after all."
+
+"Yes, isn't it?  Well, Mr Mervyn, that only adds to the pleasure of
+making your acquaintance--in such an accidental manner."
+
+For the life of him Mervyn could not restrain the ghost of a queer
+smile, for he knew there was nothing at all accidental about the matter,
+and the worst of it was the other knew that he knew it.  As for that
+other he greatly rejoiced over this discovery, for he owned to himself
+that Melian Seward's personality was almost unique in his experience;
+and, in short, and done into plain English, he wanted to see her again.
+As regarded the matter to clear up which he had come there, why it could
+go hang, or if he went on with it at all it would be simply and solely
+for his own satisfaction and in nowise to help Nashby or any of his
+kind.  As to which he was in nowise bound--for as we have said before,
+he had come there in the light of an "outside" man, and was responsible
+to nobody.
+
+And then, in the light of this newly discovered mutual acquaintance, a
+new sense of good fellowship, of cordiality seemed to spring up between
+the two men--likewise the conversation was now transferred to them.
+Mervyn warmed up with old recollections of places and people; most of
+the former and some of the latter of which were known to his guest, and
+Melian perforce had to do listener, which she did not in the least mind.
+It was not until the fading of the afternoon light that Varne suddenly
+awoke to the fact that in the capacity of unknown stranger he might have
+been there quite long enough.
+
+"Oh no.  Make your mind easy of that head," Mervyn answered, as he said
+as much.  "Look in again if you're prolonging your stay.  Have another
+`peg' before you start.  No?  A weed then?"
+
+Helston Varne lighted a cigar, and they went with him as far as the
+sluice.  Mervyn, walking behind, did not fail to observe that this time
+no notice was taken of that one stone.  The other did not even step on
+it.  This, to his mind, suggested two solutions.  Either his guest was
+off the scent, or, in the capacity of a new friend he did not intend to
+follow up his investigations.  Whichever solution it was that held good
+it was equally satisfactory to Mervyn.
+
+"Well, what do you think of that for a specimen?" he said, as Melian and
+he turned back to the house.
+
+"He's rather a good sort, and miles out of the ordinary," answered the
+girl.  "He _can_ talk."
+
+"Yes.  You've met your match in that accomplishment, certainly."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean in that way.  I mean he can talk sense.  Talk about
+things, and all that, and it's more than can be said for most people one
+runs against.  I wonder if he'll come over again."
+
+"I don't."
+
+The dry meaning of the tone, the quizzical look, earned for the speaker
+a playful pinch on the arm.
+
+"Don't be prophetic, Uncle Seward, especially with regard to a perfect
+stranger."
+
+"Perfect--eh?  H'm--ha!  Still I think we haven't seen the last of--
+Perfection.  Good name that.  Meanwhile, I shall have to find out
+something about him over and above his relationship with my old pal
+Varne Coates, before asking his intentions."
+
+This earned for the speaker another pinch--a harder one this time, and
+the chaff and raillery flowed on.  And John Seward Mervyn was conscious
+of feeling very happy, very contented.  This element of youthfulness and
+bright spirits was just that in which his solitary life had been
+lacking.  Then it had been supplied; and again and again, every hour of
+late he had blessed the chance which had supplied it.
+
+But with this complacent consciousness, there was this evening ever so
+slight a misgiving, and--while he candidly owned to himself his motive
+was a selfish one--he hoped their newly found acquaintance would, for
+any reason or none, come no more.
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+OF SOME TALK ON A ROAD.
+
+The year had dawned more and more into daylight if not correspondingly
+into warmth, and for Melian life had become more of a settled thing at
+Heath Hover.  So far she was content, but a dreadful suspicion was
+coming upon her that she might not be always content.  She had a sort of
+instinctive longing for work again, and that for its own sake--to be
+doing.  And in this quiet, rather lonely life, there was no scope for
+such.
+
+She had no friends of her own age or sex.  Two or three of both had
+called, on learning of her presence at Heath Hover, but with the best
+intentions there was nothing about them to appeal to the girl from any
+point of view.  They were just well-meaning, commonplace people of the
+most ordinary and commonplace type.
+
+To a certain extent--a large extent--her uncle made up for the want of
+such companionship.  He was a companionable man, given intelligent and
+sympathetic company, and this he found to the full in her.  There was
+hardly a subject under the sun that they did not thresh out together,
+and grim old haunted Heath Hover seemed to shake its dry bones into new
+life with the constant stream of talk and laughter which now echoed from
+its walls.
+
+"Why, you've put back the clock a quarter of a century for me, dear," he
+declared.  "I feel that much younger.  Isn't that something for you to
+have done?"
+
+And she had agreed, wholesouledly; and yet, there would obtrude that
+thought, of late, that she was doing nothing with her life.
+
+By this time her uncle had come to regard her with a sort of idolatry.
+His capacity for affection had become utterly atrophied for want of an
+object upon which to expend any of it.  Such few acquaintances or
+relatives as he had he cared nothing about.  If he had been well off
+they would have discovered fast enough that they cared about him, he
+used to tell himself cynically; and who shall say untruly.  He had
+become self-centred, even morose at times--just content to groove on
+through life to the end; thankful--if he ever thought of being thankful
+for anything at all--that there was nobody to worry him.  He had allowed
+himself to be worried at times in his life, and looked back to such
+times with a mental shudder, which was when the spirit of thankfulness
+was evolved.
+
+But now here was such an object, and it had promptly captured the whole
+of his capacity for affection and was expanding it every day.  There was
+everything in it that appealed--the sweet, refined beauty of the child,
+the sunny lightheadedness, the naive untrammelled appreciation of all
+that appealed to him--the sheer youthful enjoyment of life--well, he had
+not lived in vain.  And he made an idol of her more and more every day.
+
+So they rambled together, drove long drives together, talked together;
+indeed, not a wish of hers was left ungratified where it lay within his
+power to gratify it, and she, knowing the extent of such power, never
+dreamed of looking beyond it.  And the curious part it of was that he,
+watching her with furtive and solicitous jealousy, found that she was by
+no means tiring of this mode of life.
+
+Once or twice he had suggested she should ask some girl friend to come
+and pay her a visit, as a relief from one incessant old fogey, but she
+had not been in the least responsive.  There was no such "relief"
+required, she had answered spontaneously.  She was quite happy as they
+were.  She would like to get Violet Clinock, when the latter could come,
+but that would not be yet.  Meanwhile she was quite jolly as they were.
+
+To Mervyn this reply came with an undashed feeling of relief.  Stay--not
+altogether undashed perhaps, for he was old enough to know that a year
+or two at the outside in the ordinary course of things would be all that
+should remain to him of this idyllic time.  Why, only to look at the
+child!  Were all the best years of her life to be wasted, mewed up in a
+lonely old country corner!  And with this idea came one that had just
+hooked itself, not altogether pleasantly, on to his mind--and it spelt
+Helston Varne.
+
+For the latter had availed himself of his invitation to "come again."
+He had "come again," only to the extent of three times, but Mervyn had
+not been slow to mark a certain very complete sympathy, as of ideas in
+common, that had sprung up between him and Melian, and that from the
+very first.  They talked animatedly on every subject, several outside
+his own sphere of knowledge, and in short, seemed thoroughly to have
+taken to each other.  And Helston Varne was a remarkably fine looking
+man.
+
+Mervyn had set afoot enquiries with regard to Helston Varne, and in the
+result had elicited that whatever line the latter was pursuing at the
+present moment--and he very much more than supposed the nature of that
+line--at any rate he was not dependent upon its results in any way.  He
+was, in fact, well off--almost wealthy.  The inducement to take it up at
+all was probably the sheer sporting instinct.  So far, this conclusion
+was, from a certain point of view, satisfactory.  And Helston Varne was
+a near relation of his old and intimate friend, Varne Coates of
+Baghnagar.
+
+Personally, he liked the man.  John Seward Mervyn was a shrewd, keen
+judge of character, and studying this one closely, his verdict was
+"quite all right."  He noted too with a modicum of dry amusement that
+the "investigation" element was entirely absent during his subsequent
+visits.  Incidentally, what Inspector Nashby thought of it was quite
+another matter, as to which Mervyn did not give two thoughts.  And after
+those three visits, Helston Varne had left the neighbourhood, now some
+three weeks ago.
+
+This afternoon, Melian was walking up the hilly road in the direction of
+that which, crossing it at right angles, led to the hamlet of Lower
+Gidding.  There was a sharp north easterly wind blowing, which brought
+the colour to her cheeks, tingeing them with the glow of health, and
+lending an unusually clear brightness to the blue eyes.  She revelled in
+the exercise, walking straight from the hips with a firm elastic step.
+On her left was a sombre oak-wood, its gnarled leafless boughs showing a
+hundred fantastic--almost threatening shapes in its twilight depths.  On
+the right a high hedge showed through its bare leaflessness and gaps
+here and there, a wide sweep of view over the valley beneath.  Even that
+far inland a sea mist was creeping up from beyond the distant downs,
+partially blotting the fast setting sun into a blood red disc.  A
+cottage with its low eaves and picturesque chimney stacks stood out
+against the murk.  Then the sudden loud ting of a bicycle bell made her
+look up with something of a start, for she was deep in her own thoughts.
+
+The rider was coming down the hill on the free wheel.  At sight of her
+he clapped the brakes on sharp; so sharp, as well nigh to earn
+catastrophe--for himself.  In a moment he was standing in the road.
+
+"Miss Seward!  Why this is an unexpected and delightful meeting, I was
+on my way to look up your uncle."
+
+"Were you?  He'll be glad.  Well, we can walk back together, Mr Varne--
+unless, of course, you'd sooner ride," she added, mischievously.
+
+"Why of course I would," he answered, in the same vein.
+
+"Where are you from now.  The usual _Woodcock_, Lower Gidding?"
+
+"No.  The _Queen's Head_, Clancehurst, this time.  You know how we used
+to wrangle over the shortest way out.  Well, I'm still inclined to think
+there isn't a hundred yards to choose between them.  The one you always
+use _seems_ the straightest."
+
+"All serene, I still stick to my opinion.  The Cholgate way _is_ the
+shortest," she answered, merrily mischievous.
+
+"Then the Cholgate way _is_ the shortest, and there's no more to be
+said," answered Varne in the same spirit, and as he looked down into the
+dancing blue eyes, he came to the conclusion that he was looking upon
+the sweetest, most entrancing vision of girl loveliness he had ever
+looked upon in his life.
+
+"Well, and what have you been doing with yourself all this time?" she
+said as they walked down the steep, rather stony hill.
+
+"H'm!  Various things," he answered, unconsciously shading off his
+lightness of tone a little, as the ugliness of a particularly grim
+affair which he had been engaged upon investigating, obtruded
+unpleasantly at such a moment.
+
+She sent a quick look at him, and did not pursue the subject.
+
+"Look.  There's old Broceliande--still in the same place."
+
+This was a reference to the dark oak-wood, now on their right as they
+retraced their way.  Melian was a great reader of Mallory, and during
+one of Helston Varne's previous visits she had taken him for a walk
+through this wood, pointing out its imaginary resemblances to that
+legendary forest.
+
+"Yes.  It wouldn't have moved in between, and the British Isles don't
+come within the zone of seismic disturbance," he answered.  "And you
+haven't discovered the ghost of old Merlin plodding about it yet?"
+
+"No.  I've tried to--in the dusk of a dismal evening.  But that old
+crowd seem to have lived in sunshine and moonlight for the most part.
+What on earth they did with their armour and silken pavilions when it
+rained is a puzzler."
+
+Helston laughed.  "Oh, one got rusty and the other draggle-tailed, I
+suppose," he said.  "Now, if I had made that remark you'd have been down
+on me like a hammer as a Goth and a Vandal, and a profane person who'd
+sold his birthright--for a plate of porridge, incidentally."  Then, more
+seriously, "And how have _you_ been getting on?"
+
+"Fine.  This country is too perfect for anything.  I just revel in it."
+But then, that misgiving which had been tugging at her mind on the way
+out somehow recurred, and the bright, animated, speaking face was bound
+to show something of it.  Equally, her then companion was bound to see
+it, and he--even he--of course was bound to put it down to the wrong
+cause.  Had there been any further development in the mystery--in its
+latest form--which overhung Heath Hover, he thought?  However, he
+answered:
+
+"That's right.  Why you are looking twice the girl you were the first
+time I saw you.  You have put on colour, and look in altogether splendid
+form."
+
+"Thanks.  Glad to hear I've improved," she answered, with a laugh.
+"That's always a satisfactory item of knowledge."  Then she subsided
+into silence.  She was thinking of two or three strange things which had
+happened since she saw him last--occurrences which had frightened her,
+utterly intangible, even more so than on that night when she had rushed
+downstairs in a state of scare to her uncle.  But with an effort she had
+refrained from saying anything to the latter about them.  He would only
+laugh at the whole thing as he had done before and suggest bats or rats,
+or something of the kind as an explanation.  But this man somehow she
+felt a longing to confide in.  There was something about him that seemed
+to render him in her eyes a very tower of strength and reliability.  Had
+she known what his real line was she would not have hesitated--let alone
+could she have heard his light, easy, confident boast, when talking with
+Nashby: "Given time, and make it worth my while, and I'd undertake to
+dis-ghost every haunted house in England."
+
+The twilight was merging into darkness now.  From the sombre oak-wood
+with its gnarled branches which had led her to christen it Broceliande,
+came the crow of a belated pheasant fluttering up to roost, and the
+surface of Plane Pond, coming into view beneath, stared white, a long,
+slit-shaped eye.  More than ever she felt moved to confide in him.  And
+as if to strengthen her towards this course he suddenly said:
+
+"Something is troubling you.  I wouldn't obtude for the world, but--you
+have something on your mind."
+
+"Why do you--why should you think that?"  And the half-startled look in
+the wide-opened eyes, meeting his in their straight glance, confirmed
+him in his theory.
+
+"Never mind," he replied, and she was quick to notice the world of
+sympathetic reassurance in his tone.  "I won't press you for confidence.
+But remember--if at any time you feel like making it--and I don't say
+it to brag, but those who know me would be able to tell you that you
+might make it to plenty of people who could be of less use to you.
+Well, if at any time you should want a friend, no matter what the nature
+of the worry is, you won't hesitate to apply to me.  Will you promise me
+that much?"
+
+She darted a quick look up at him in the gloaming.  More than ever did
+he seem as a very tower of strength.  And then the sheer contrast seemed
+to suggest bathos.  How absurd her shadowy imaginative fears must appear
+to a man of this stamp.  Why, he would smile them down as a mere girlish
+scare of bogydom.  Of course.  And yet--why not chance it?
+
+"Well?  Won't you promise that little?"
+
+"Yes.  I promise.  But--"
+
+She was on the point of keeping that promise then and there, of telling
+him all, the haunting fear that hung over her in the lonely old house
+down yonder, at times.  At times--not always--that was where the strange
+part of it came in; and, stranger still, not only during the hours of
+darkness.  Sometimes in broad daylight, when she was alone, would come
+the chill, shuddering consciousness that there was another Presence
+beside her, even the stealthy sound of steps, the whisper of voices.
+But it would come so sporadically, with long intervals between, and
+otherwise life was so good, that such a strange manifestation did not
+avail to effect a lasting impression.
+
+"But what?" he said.
+
+She hesitated a moment, then the opportunity was gone.  There was a
+clink of stones on the roadway just in front and below, then a cough,
+followed by another.
+
+"Hallo, Uncle Seward!" cried the girl, as a figure loomed in sight in
+the fast deepening gloom.  "You oughtn't to have come out at the very
+dampest part of the whole day."
+
+"Oh don't blow me up, child," chuckled Mervyn, "I came to meet you.
+Why--who's this?  Varne, by George.  You're quite a stranger, Varne.
+Come along down and take pot-luck.  Eh?"
+
+"Delighted, I'm sure.  I nearly collided with Miss Seward free wheeling
+down that abominably stony hill.  I was coming over to look you up but
+I've got to catch the last train up from Clancehurst.  Got something
+important to attend to."
+
+Mervyn emitted a half chuckle and turned it off into a cough.  What
+affair was Varne on to now, he wondered?  At any rate he hoped it would
+turn out more satisfactory than the one which had brought him down here,
+his own to wit.
+
+"Oh well, Business is--biz," he answered, "only I can't send you over in
+the trap because there's no one to drive.  But there'll be a moon.  What
+if you get punctured, though?  Eh?"
+
+"Can't.  I've got unpuncturable tyres.  I never take risks."
+
+"Quite right.  Quite right.  Well, here we are, I'd got a touch of
+sciatica, and a bit of a choke thrown in," he went on, "and have been
+sticking in all day on the strength of it."
+
+"And then coming out at the coldest, dampest end of it," supplied Melian
+severely.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Every temptation to the contrary the guest was as good as his word, and
+it needed some strength of mind to tear himself away, comparatively
+early, from that cosy lighted room with its great fire roaring up the
+width of the wide chimney--more so still, indeed, from the entrancing
+vision of that bright presence with the mass of gold-crowned hair
+gleaming in the lamplight.  But Helston Varne was nothing if not strong.
+
+Yet as he wheeled along under a clear moon, heading for Clancehurst, now
+darting through a gap of road between the blackness of sombre woods, now
+skimming over high, open heath, with the dimming vista of wide country
+spreading out beneath and beyond--of a truth he was thinking a great
+deal more of that same bright presence than of the important matter
+before him which he was hurrying back to unravel, and whereon hung
+tragedy.  But he promised himself that it would not be long before he
+revisited Heath Hover.
+
+Wherein becomes manifest the strange discrepancy that the astute never
+failing unraveller of mysteries, known as Helston Varne, forgot to take
+count of the greatest mystery of all--that of the Future.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+SHOCK--ALL ROUND.
+
+The master of Heath Hover had just drawn up the blind of his bedroom
+window, and was gazing out upon a morning of unrivalled and cloudless
+beauty, for the year had grown apace, and now the tender green of the
+spring leafage gladdened the eye in every direction.  Through the open
+window floated the scents of spring--late spring--likewise its sounds,
+the hum of winged insects, the cry of coots from up yonder on the pond,
+the carolling of innumerable thrushes and the ever welcome call of the
+cuckoo.  It was a morning on which, all things being even, it was good
+to be alive.
+
+Came also to his ears another sound, sweeter than even the sweet sounds
+of spring--the sound of girl voices, the high, clear notes of Melian's
+voice rising above that of Violet Clinock, who had arrived the evening
+before on a few days' visit.  Nearer and nearer drew the voices, and
+then their owners came in sight, and began leisurely to descend the path
+leading from the sluice.  A delightful picture they made, in their youth
+and freshness--thought the onlooker, whom as yet they had not seen.
+
+They had paused about halfway down, and Melian was descanting volubly on
+some favourite subject--and then the said onlooker's face went white and
+clammy, and he thought he could hardly keep his footing, for something
+bright and shining had caught his glance, and it was in Melian's hand.
+
+The whole outlook seemed to sway and rock before Mervyn's eyes.  Was it
+real or was he dreaming?  This dreadful thing, this hateful thing, held
+carelessly in the long white fingers!  Why, he would about as soon have
+found her caressing a hooded snake.  What should he do, what should he
+say--and would she unhesitatingly obey him?  In the horror of the moment
+even the power of speech seemed to fail him.  But some sort of an
+exclamation must have escaped him, for now they looked up.
+
+"Drop--that--thing--instantly," he managed to jerk out, and his voice
+seemed far away and raucous.  "Obey me--without--question, Melian."
+
+If ever two startled girls stood staring, it was these two in the middle
+of the sluice path.  The ghastliness of the face up there at the window,
+the fearful, unnatural voice.  That her uncle had suddenly gone mad was
+the solution which first presented itself to Melian's perplexed mind.
+But she obeyed.  An immense sigh of relief escaped the onlooker.
+
+"Don't move," he said, "until I come down."
+
+His hands trembled so that he could hardly tie the tasselled cord which
+girded his dressing gown, and he almost stumbled down the stairs in his
+haste to arrive.  Even in that flash of time, he was thinking--What if
+they should take advantage of his momentary disappearance from sight to
+pick up that thing again?  But he must pull himself together, and even
+as he emerged he felt partially relieved to notice that they were
+standing just as he had seen them last, but staring at him in round-eyed
+amazement.
+
+"Why, Uncle Seward, whatever is it?  You look as if you had seen all the
+ghosts in the world."
+
+"Here, child, show me your hands--quick!"
+
+Still marvelling, she extended them.  He seized them in his, and
+subjected them to a long, close scrutiny, first with the palms upward,
+then all over.  The colour returned to his ghastly face as he emitted a
+long deep sigh of relief.
+
+"Yours now, Miss Clinock."
+
+Violet extended hers, feeling in secret rather frightened.  What strange
+mystery was this which had been effective so violently to upset her
+ordinarily so equable and self-contained host--this was not her first
+visit to Heath Hover.  She could not but notice, while the same process
+was repeated, that it seemed to be slightly less prolonged in her case
+than in that of Melian.
+
+"What does it mean, Mr Mervyn?" she asked.
+
+"Any one would think that that rum little shining thing would bite,"
+said Melian, mischievously.
+
+The two pairs of bright eyes, the dark and the blue, brimming with
+mischief--eke curiosity--fixed upon his face, served to brace Mervyn.
+He was himself again, or very nearly.  And then to him came the thought
+as to how he should account for his agitation.  It had been so palpably
+real that he was at his wits' end to think how he should explain it
+away; and it must be explained away.  Women were gifted with such
+singularly clear-sighted instinct--and, worse still, perhaps--with such
+a fund of curiosity.  A forestalment of this promptly came out.
+
+"But--what _is_ the thing, Uncle Seward?" went on Melian.
+
+He looked at her for a moment, wondering what answer to make.
+
+"Perhaps I was upset about nothing," he said, regaining his equability
+with an effort.  "The fact is it brought back to my mind a very curious
+and uncanny experience--not in this country, but I've been among strange
+scenes and people in other parts of the world, you know.  There's a
+great deal in association of ideas, and there are strange happenings all
+the world over, as you two children may--or may not--find out by the
+time you get to my time of life.  Where did you find--that--by the
+way?--No--leave it where it is."
+
+This last quickly, as Melian stooped over the thing as though to pick it
+up again.
+
+"Why, just where the path begins to come down from the road," she
+answered, wondering.
+
+"On your way _back_?"
+
+The question came out abrupt, staccato.  Some of the first agitation
+seemed to show itself again.  And then, with the affirmative answer,
+both girls noticed that he looked greatly relieved.
+
+"Well, I suppose you're both ready for breakfast," he went on in quite a
+normal tone.  "I'm not, but you're not obliged to wait for me.  That
+would be too great a tax on your ravening young appetites, wouldn't it?
+Eh, Miss Clinock?"
+
+Violet, thus appealed to, laughingly disclaimed impatience on that head,
+but Melian thoroughly and emphatically disagreed with her.
+
+"Well, you'd better go and hurry old Judy up," said Mervyn.  "I shall
+have to go and get dressed first."
+
+But he did not re-enter the house with them, nor, indeed, did he hurry
+to re-enter it at all.  Both girls were rather silent and wondering, and
+in the minds of both was the same thought, though neither cared to voice
+it to the other, and the thought was a disquieting one; perhaps to
+Melian the more disquieting of the two.  For to her clearer insight, and
+with the knowledge of her uncle's character, which she had had some
+months of opportunity to gain, his explanation of the incident did not
+somehow carry conviction.  There was more, far more beneath it than a
+mere matter of evolved recollection; of that she felt fully convinced.
+He was not the stamp of man who would be upset by such, and the
+practical side had come out in the very real fear--the agony of fear
+almost--which he had manifested over the discovery of that harmless
+looking star-shaped trinket.  Trinket?  Well, that for want of a better
+word.  The thing, after all, might have been a trade mark of sorts which
+had come detached from a biscuit box or a tin of specially boomed
+blacking.  No.  There was more in this than met the eye.
+
+Then she remembered that her uncle had spent his life in strange, out of
+the way parts of the world, mostly among strange people.  What if there
+was nothing accidental about this shining pointed thing being left just
+where he could find it.  What if it were some sort of a sign, some sort
+of a manifesto?  What if some danger were overhanging him?  And by a
+curious back twist in her mind the thought of Helston Varne came back to
+her.  A tower of strength seemed that thought--and then came that which
+seemed to cut under its foundations.
+
+They were both halfway through breakfast by then, when Mervyn entered--
+clothed and ready for the day before him.  All trace of agitation seemed
+to have disappeared.  He was even in unusual good spirits.
+
+"By the way," he said, in the course of conversation, which he had
+somewhat cleverly led up to, "I suppose you two children are old enough
+to know how not to talk.  For instance--your find this morning.  I
+particularly wish no word to be said about it to anybody--anybody.  Not
+only round here, but anywhere.  Perhaps some day--though I don't
+absolutely promise that--I may give you an explanation; but only on
+condition nothing is said about it now."
+
+Both pairs of eyes sparked up.  But Melian's dropped.  She could not
+take Helston Varne into confidence now.
+
+"Why, Mr Mervyn," answered Violet, readily, "of course we shan't say
+anything about it."
+
+"You'll greatly oblige me if you don't," he said, somewhat earnestly.
+"The fact is that there are quite enough `old wives' fables' hanging
+about this place.  We don't want to pile on to them.  By the by, there's
+another thing, which is perhaps a harder thing to ask.  Don't talk it
+over with each other--in short, don't _dwell_ upon it.  Forget it."
+
+"Aren't you rather asking us impossibilities, dear?" said Melian.  "Two
+mere women!  And our curiosity screwed up to boiling over point."
+
+"Why, it smacks of a magazine yarn," declared Violet.  "Never mind, Mr
+Mervyn, I'll promise to remember your wishes."
+
+Both fancied he looked relieved, though not entirely at ease.
+
+"That's perfectly all right, then," he returned.  "Anybody who was such
+a friend to this little one when she was in straits as you were, is safe
+on a promise, I'll swear."
+
+"Steady on, Mr Mervyn, and spare my blushes," protested the girl,
+looking pleased all the same.  "I did no more for Melian than she'd have
+done for me, and we people who have to work have to stick by each other
+when a pinch comes."
+
+"And very much to the good that is," said Mervyn.  "Knocks a lot of the
+essentially feminine nonsense out of women and develops the good."
+
+"Well said, Mr Mervyn.  That's capital, isn't it, Melian?"
+
+"Not bad," was the reply, with a dash of affectionate impudence
+underlying it.
+
+"Not only that, but it was owing to you entirely that I became aware--
+almost of the existence, I was going to say--of this child here," he
+went on.  "That counts on the credit side of obligation."
+
+"Oh, go it, Uncle Seward.  Butter seems to be getting cheap," said
+Melian, equably.  "We are getting more than we can do with, Violet.
+Eh--what?"
+
+"Now what would you children like to do with yourselves this morning?"
+asked Mervyn, when the laugh had subsided.
+
+"We were going to show Violet how to catch some fish.  Old Joe has been
+digging out worms, and he's coming with us to bait.  You know, Violet,
+the part I can't stick about this bait fishing is the worm part of it,
+so I take Joe to do that, and look the other way while he does it.
+There are some good perch in Plane Pond, but the big ones will hardly
+ever bite.  The smaller ones you can get plenty of, but the pounders
+won't come to the scratch, like the `oldest oyster' in the Walrus and
+the Carpenter."
+
+"All right, then," said her uncle.  "You two will be quite happy on your
+own, and I've got some letters to write.  I haven't often, which is one
+of the compensating advantages of being a lonely man.  So shout up Joe
+when you want him."
+
+He saw them start off presently; bright, happy, laughing.  He did not go
+with them as far as the boat house, which nestled in the thick, wooded
+bank of the great pond near the further end of the same.  John Seward
+Mervyn had a good deal on his mind that radiant cloudless morning of
+late spring, while all the woods were ringing with birdsong, and the
+sweet, young, clear voices of his niece and guest died fainter and
+fainter away among the solemn tree boles.
+
+Two cyclists skimmed along the sluice-road, taking the next steep
+acclivity with all the rush they could get out of their headlong free
+wheel down the steeper, and somewhat dangerously winding, hill before.
+They looked to the right at the pond, and to the left at Heath Hover.
+One seemed half inclined to stop and dismount to take in the picturesque
+effect of it, but did not.  Then a waggon loaded up with floury
+millsacks rumbled by, and then another cyclist, a motor one this time,
+and the spitting throb of his abominable engine and the reek of petrol
+seemed to hang on the glorious, radiant, spring air like a corroding
+cloud, long after their producer was out of sight.  But there seemed an
+unusual amount of traffic on that not much used road to-day, thought
+Mervyn--and then he fell to wondering what if the shine of that
+mysterious disc deposited at the top of the sluice path, had caught the
+eye of any of these?  Well, that was not his affair, he thought, grimly,
+but--something more might have been heard of it.  And the thought
+brought back something of that awful heart-numbed blood-freezing moment,
+when he had descried Melian coming down the path, holding that symbol in
+her bare hand.
+
+How had it got there--there where she had found it?  _It_?  Yes, but--
+had _it_?  To set this doubt at rest--not much "rest" about it, he told
+himself with a mirthless ironical laugh--he had been glad to see the
+last of these bright young presences for an hour or two.  Old Judy he
+could hear now clattering about with pots and pans and firestoking
+implements in the kitchen.  He was entirely alone--at last.
+
+He went upstairs.  The landings, uneven and cranky with age, gave and
+creaked beneath his tread.  The long narrow passage which led to the
+disused part of the house was darkened with dust and cobwebs on the
+neglected casements, and as he went along, he was drawing on that same
+old pair of gloves.  He passed several doors, then turned the handle of
+one.  It opened into a mouldy room, partly stacked with ancient and
+worm-eaten furniture.  He moved aside an old sideboard, which seemed to
+manifest an inclination to fall to pieces in the process.  Between it
+and the wall something gleamed at him, something white and shining.  He
+bent down as though to touch it, then changed his mind.
+
+"Good!  That's there," he said to himself.  "Now for the other, if _it_
+is there?"
+
+He went out again and shut the door, removing the gloves as he threaded
+the passage; and putting them in his pocket, he went to the front door
+and out.  The fresh open air--yes, that was life--the pure sweet breath
+of wood and water, the joyous song of birds.  Afar down the long pond,
+came another joyous sound, that of rippling laughter.  It came from the
+boat, wafted over the water--wondrous sound conductor--and although
+nearly half a mile away he could distinguish Melian's clear note from
+that of her friend.  Lightheartedness, silvery lightheadedness, running
+side by side, parallel with tragedy!  A strange world!  Then he dived
+into a close woodland path which led down at a steep angle below the
+house.
+
+Soon he stopped, listening--looked around without seeming to do either.
+A runnel of water trickled down a stony course, partly under the stones;
+in hot weather it was dry.  He moved aside two stones, casually as
+though thinking of something else.  In the solemn silence of the gnarled
+oak-wood he could see nobody, but it did not follow that nobody could
+see him.
+
+But--_something_ could--_something_ did.  The round, white, eye-like
+disc, with its five star points, stared up at him--stared with baleful--
+almost human, or rather demoniacal glance, from its damp bed, where he
+himself had placed it months before.  It should have been red with
+rust--yet it was not.  This too struck him, and he began to feel himself
+hopelessly enmeshed.  That other, its counterpart, who had placed it
+there?  He had been cherishing a faint and utterly unreasonable thought
+that in a moment of aberration, he himself might have removed it from
+the original hiding place to which he had consigned it during Helston
+Varne's temporary imprisonment.  But no.  There was the other, in the
+disused part of his house.  He had just put it there, and he had just
+left it there.  He could not get away from that.
+
+The beauties of the glorious woodland were around him as he retraced his
+steps, the networking of the sunlight through the tree-tops, the cool,
+moist fragrance of underfoot moss, the tap-tap of a woodpecker coming in
+chastened echo through the columns of tree trunks, then the gurgling
+trill of a thrush.  Everywhere peace, the sweet English woodland peace
+of a cloudless late spring or early summer day.  Yet John Seward Mervyn
+went up that woodland path wearing a grey, ashen face, and carrying
+something very like utter despair in his heart.
+
+As he arrived at the house, the two girls were coming down the path.  A
+clear, laughing hail of welcome greeted him.
+
+"We've been in luck, dear," cried Melian, taking a fishing basket from
+old Joe, who was walking behind.  "Look at this."
+
+She displayed eight or nine perch--two quite big ones.
+
+"Violet caught those," she went on.  "I've never caught any as big.  I
+don't believe there are any bigger ones in Plane Pond; eh, Joe."
+
+"They be middlin' fish, Miss Melun--they be middlin' fish, sure-ly,"
+answered the old rustic.
+
+"Why, I'm sure the big 'un must be over a pound," rattled on the girl
+joyously.  "And didn't Violet just prick her fingers over his spines."
+
+Here again Mervyn conjured up another picture as he contemplated the
+great spiny dorsal fin and black stripes of a really finely conditioned
+perch.  She had pricked her fingers with something very harmless that
+time, he thought, grimly.
+
+"We have had such a jolly time, Mr Mervyn," said Violet, animatedly.
+"I've enjoyed it no end."
+
+He felt that she was looking curiously at him.  Her delighted tone
+seemed to tail off suddenly.
+
+"I'm very glad to hear it," he said, throwing off his mood and striving
+to join in theirs.
+
+"Over a pound.  I'm certain it is," went on Melian, who was still
+wrapped up in contemplation of the "take".  "Come along and let's weigh
+him."
+
+And the two, aglow with life and spirits, headed for the kitchen and the
+weighing scales.
+
+"Contrast--again?" thought Mervyn, as he followed.
+
+So did another person, who, unseen, had witnessed the whole of the
+morning's doings from their very commencement.
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+INTERIM--QUIET.
+
+Even as Violet had said, to put such a superhuman strain upon the
+curiosity of two mere women seemed scarcely fair, and perhaps the
+hardest strain of all was Mervyn's injunction not to talk about the
+matter between themselves even; however, they followed it out with a
+tolerable show of loyalty; in fact, as great a one as could be expected
+of their sex.
+
+On Melian, of course, the strain fell the hardest.  She was quick to
+recognise that the finding of that strange object had affected her uncle
+far more than he would allow to appear.  Not only that, but as day
+followed upon day, there was no lessening of the effect.  Then, too,
+what had he done with the thing when they had gone inside leaving him
+alone.  Buried it--thrown it into the pond, or what?  She, too, began to
+feel as though living under the spell of a fear.  Perhaps it had been an
+error of judgment on her uncle's part, to enjoin so strict a silence
+upon them, she more than once thought--and the worst of this was that it
+precluded her from consulting Helston Varne.
+
+She had been impressed by the promise that he had exacted from her that
+she would so consult him in the event of finding herself in any
+difficulty; in fact, under just such a contingency as had occurred; but
+she was debarred by her subsequent promise.  There were other mysterious
+happenings she had considered the expediency of laying before him; more
+even than when we last saw her on the point of doing so; for she had
+since gained more than an inkling as to his real line in life and the
+discovery increased her interest in him well nigh to the pitch of
+vividness.
+
+There was another matter as to which she had gained more than an
+inkling, and that, the ill-repute which was said to surround Heath
+Hover.  She remembered how on her first arrival she had suggested that
+it looked like a haunted house, and the way in which her uncle had
+scoffed at the idea and turned away the question, struck her in
+subsequent lights as a trifle overdoing the part.  One circumstance,
+however, seemed more suspicious still.
+
+She was chatting with old Joe one day, and enjoining upon him the
+necessity of fixing a board over a pane of glass she had broken in her
+bedroom window, until it could be properly mended.
+
+"I don't want any more bats coming in and flicking me in the face, Joe,"
+she appended, "like that night just after I got here."
+
+The old man dropped the handles of the barrow which he was just about to
+trundle, and stared at her queerly.
+
+"What time might that ha' been, Missie?" he said.
+
+"Why, a few days after I came."
+
+"That warn't no flittermaouse," he said.  "Yew won't see none o' they
+for--come weeks and weeks.  They be all asleep they be."
+
+"But it might have been a stray one."
+
+The old rustic grinned pityingly and shook his head.
+
+"That warn't no flittermaouse," he repeated.
+
+Melian's eyes opened wider.
+
+"What was it, then?" she said.
+
+But the old rustic seemed suddenly to become alive to the fact that he
+had said too much; in short, had been betrayed into overstepping his
+employer's explicitly imposed injunctions.
+
+"What war it?  Narthen.  You'd been dreamin', Missie, for sure.  That's
+what it war."  And old Joe had picked up the wheelbarrow handles and
+trundled off then and there with an energy which bade fair to put a stop
+to any further questioning.
+
+But his statement had rendered Melian decidedly uncomfortable.  If her
+acquaintance with natural history was defective, she had had ample
+opportunity of discovering that that of her uncle was not; in fact,
+eminently the reverse, and that he of all people should have been so
+hard put to it as to invent a bat flying about on a mid-winter night,
+showed something loose somewhere.  Should she tax him with it under the
+form of chaff?  But she decided not to.  He might not like it, and
+again, he would almost certainly be angry with old Joe.  On the other
+hand it looked as if he himself were not so sceptical as he made out.
+
+She had also become aware that nobody had been able to inhabit Heath
+Hover for a long time past until her uncle had come; that is to say, do
+more than give it a very brief trial, perhaps one of fewer weeks than he
+had given it months.  Well, as to that, he seemed quite comfortable
+there, and since her arrived, happy.  She was letting her imagination
+run riot too much, she told herself--and certainly, she had never _seen_
+anything since her arrival.  Strange sounds might be produced by any
+cause, and as for "influences"--well, imagination might be a factor
+again.
+
+Helston Varne had not been near them since that visit when they had met
+unexpectedly on the dusking road, and as a matter of hard fact Melian
+felt just a little sore with him for not having been.  He had sent her a
+few lines--short, straight, and to the point--reminding her of his
+willingness to assist her at any time or at any moment, reminding her
+also of her promise not to be behindhand in claiming such aid.  This
+note she had carefully kept.  But he had not been near them again, and
+she had found herself very much wishing that he would come.  There was
+something so refreshingly out of the ordinary about his personality--
+about his conversation--and then, too, the high intellectual talent
+which must go to make him such a success in the line of life he had
+adopted; the suggestion of mystery blended with power was just the
+element to appeal strongly to a girl of her character and temperament.
+The fact is, that during the intervening time--getting on for three
+months as it was--Melian had been thinking a great deal about Helston
+Varne.
+
+Everything was favourable to introspection of the sort.  The life she
+led, amid free, open, congenial surroundings, into the charm of which
+she had entered from the very first, and which had grown upon her more
+and more with every change of the advancing season--and yet the
+personality of the man seemed subtly to pervade it all.  There were
+spots they had visited--a casual stroll along a woodland path, or a
+breezy, uphill climb to this or that point whence rolling views of some
+of the loveliest rural expanse in England swept away on either hand; and
+she could remember all that was said, and exactly where it was said,
+during their exchange of ideas, which were, for the most part,
+thoroughly in sympathy.  And then, too, in her moments of shadowy fears
+in the mysterious ill-omened old house--small wonder that taking all
+things together she should have thought a good deal about Helston Varne
+during that intervening time.
+
+It was the last day of Violet Clinock's visit, and on the morrow she
+would be returning to town and work.  She was a cheerful contented soul,
+but the contrast between this glorious early June day, paradisical in
+its cloudless beauty, the air fragrant with spring flowers and melodious
+with the song of soaring larks; every meadow a golden sea of buttercups;
+and soft masses of new leafage on high, irregular hedges, or towering
+hugely heavenwards from this or that noble wood--the contrast between
+this and the stuffy air and blackened chimney stacks which formed the
+sole and shut-in outlook from her own modest dwelling of all the year
+round was too marked even for her.  She felt anything but lighthearted.
+
+"You are in luck, Melian, dear," she could not restrain herself from
+saying, wistfully.  "Look at all this, and then think of me this time
+to-morrow."
+
+Melian was in the mood thoroughly to sympathise.  This was one of those
+days which she appreciated every hour, every minute of--and on which she
+felt she could not get up too early or see the last of too late.
+
+"Couldn't you anyway manage to stretch it out even a day or two longer?"
+she said.  "Surely you can?"
+
+But the other shook a desponding head.
+
+"No fear.  I've pulled it out to its very utmost limits," she said.  "I
+can't afford to play cat and banjo with my billet--certainly not yet."
+
+There was that in the answer which seemed to remind Melian that the
+speaker had done that very thing on her behalf, what time she had been
+ill, and friendless, and nearly destitute.
+
+"It's too bad," she declared.  "Yes, I am lucky, Violet, dear, and I owe
+my luck entirely to you.  But of course, when you have your long
+holiday--in August or September--you are to put in every day of it here.
+Just think--all those glorious heather slopes above Plane Pond--right
+away back--will be blazing with crimson, and--what times we'll have.  It
+isn't so far off either, so buck up.  It's of no use talking about
+week-ends I suppose."
+
+"You know I can't run to it, dear."
+
+"I know you're altogether too beastly proud," was the answer.  "If we
+gave you a birthday present of a new hat you wouldn't be too proud to
+take that, and a return ticket here runs to far less.  It's an absurd
+distinction."
+
+But the other's head shake was quite decided.
+
+"We've hammered all that out before," she said.  "Look, your uncle has
+finished his siesta.  Here he comes."
+
+The two girls had been picking wild flowers and had wandered away from
+the spot where they had been picnicking on sandwiches and ginger-beer--
+and something stronger for the only male of the party.  It was a lovely
+spot, an intermingling of heath and woodland, and the white stems of
+birches supporting their new feathery foliage, stood out in relief from
+a background of dark firs.  Just glimpsed in the distance beyond stood a
+venerable wooden windmill raised on piles--one of its sails missing and
+another falling in half through sheer old age, like teeth.  The whole
+made for that combination of charm and the picturesque so characteristic
+of, if not unique, as a sample of English rural scenery.
+
+"Well," said Mervyn, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as he joined
+them, and looking very placid and contented.  "Isn't it time to saddle
+up?  We've come a precious long way, remember, and you have to allow a
+margin for punctures."
+
+But Melian overruled him.
+
+"We needn't hurry, you know, dear," she urged.  "And it's Violet's last
+day."
+
+"I know it is, worse luck," he answered, kindly, "I wish it needn't be.
+Then again, we must also allow for that inspection of `old stones' you
+threatened to deflect us from our way to go and adore."
+
+"Oh, Chiltingford?  You must see that, Violet.  And there's a ripping
+old pair of stocks too.  By Jove, but that's good enough!"
+
+"Don't know whether the misdemeanants who were clamped up in them
+thought them good enough?" said her uncle with a laugh, and lighting a
+fresh pipe.  "Well, you shall both do just what you like to-day."
+
+And they did; and the long, bright golden afternoon went all too quickly
+by, as they skimmed along the well-kept roads, skirting greenwoods
+resonant with thrush voices; down long hills between spangled meadows;
+past cottages nestling in trees--every one a picture in itself--and snug
+farms bulging with the suggestion of solid comfort; old grey church
+towers, at which Melian looked wistfully and had to be reminded that the
+cultus of every pile of "old stones" they saw would not come within the
+compass of their time limit--and here and there one of those old country
+seats whose exact counterpart is to be found in no other country in the
+world.  Yes, it was one of those days that would stand out, to elderly
+and young alike, of those comprising that trio.  To two of them at least
+it might be that it would come back with all the more marked contrast--
+perchance of deadly peril and fear--but that was within the
+potentialities of the Future.
+
+The stars were already bright in the summer sky as they descended the
+last steep and stony hill, the quality of the latter calling forth more
+than one half stifled malediction from the elderly unit of the trio
+aforesaid.  But to another unit of the said trio, the darkness, the
+spot, conjured up a recollection, albeit the "tang-tang" of a jubilant
+nightingale sounded from the dark and now leafy depths of "Broceliande,"
+and the little brown owls, hawking over the adjoining fields, were
+sending forth their harsh, fierce cries.  Here was where she had
+accidentally met Helston Varne for the last time, and they had not met
+since.  She was wondering again whether they ever would.  And yet--it
+was of no use to keep on dwelling upon it, she decided.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+THE INFLUENCE.
+
+It was a glowing, beautiful summer, and as each radiant day succeeded
+another, it seemed to Melian a difficult thing to realise her former
+life, so completely had that passed away.  It seemed to have been the
+life of somebody else.  She thought of Violet Clinock with pity and real
+concern--stewed up in horrible dusty streets, in all the roar and bustle
+of them--while she herself was revelling in the glory of the unclouded
+sunlight, and the dim holiness of leafy wood-depths, or the roll of open
+champaign stretching away softened into far distance; a fresh vista of
+joy whichever way the eye might turn; breathing the free and fragrant
+air of Heaven itself.  Yet her concern was to a certain extent wasted,
+so differently are humans constituted; for, as a matter of fact, though
+thoroughly enjoying every moment of the few days which constituted her
+visit, the same number of months would have bored Violet Clinock to
+death.  She was temperamentally of the stirring, bustling order, and the
+very elements of the town life, which to Melian, looking back upon,
+gained in repulsion, were to her without knowing it, part of the
+essentials of well being.
+
+For the misgivings which had beset Melian as to whether she was not
+wasting her life had lulled, if not died, as the joyous spring rushed on
+into glorious summer, and she noted and appreciated every shade and
+harmony of such change; the deepening of the leafage, and the blooming
+of this or that new variety of wild flower life; the song chorus of
+innumerable thrushes, in all its varying liquid notes, from early morn
+till late eve; and the "tang-tang" of nightingales through the fast
+shortening hours of darkness.  And then, when the dawn pearled upon the
+awakening world, what a carolling of sweetness as countless larks sprang
+upwards and soared higher and higher into the liquid blue.
+
+And then those delightful rambles, whether short or long, by field paths
+or along leafy hedges where the honeysuckle was beginning to hang its
+creamy petals, or in shaded woods, the sunlight networking here and
+there on the feathery tops of the green bracken, a rest at some quaint
+little roadside inn for tea, then home again in the dewiness of rich
+meadows, where young lambs skipped and shrilly bleated.  Or again, a
+long round on the bicycle, exploring this or that old ruin, or massive
+and picturesque ancient church.  By this time she knew the whole
+countryside by heart.  And it is doubtful whether this brought more
+enjoyment to her than to her uncle--her invariable companion on such
+wanderings.
+
+As for Mervyn himself, it is safe to say perhaps that he had never been
+so happy in his life.  All that appealed to the girl here, appealed to
+him, but he had not been capable of enjoying it in solitude.  Now this
+was all changed, and at every moment of the day he found himself
+revelling in her happiness, whether it was watching her gathering wild
+flowers in a sunbath of greenery and radiance, or seated smoking the
+pipe of placidity and peace upon some churchyard wall what time she was
+assimilating the interior of the mouldering structure, to come forth
+presently, with animated eyes to descant upon the wondrous fret of some
+grisly old Norman arch which it comprised.  And he revelled in it with
+the deeper intensity because, with the experience of age, he knew that
+it was not destined to last.
+
+And then, indeed, as though to bear out the soundness of this reasoning,
+there came a change--a cloud, a shadow--but of this he divined nothing
+as yet.  As the summer drew near its zenith something seemed to come
+over Melian.  Throughout the radiancy of the glowing summer day--or even
+when clouds from seaward brought some hours of soft warm rain to keep
+the full sapped leafage from succumbing to a too long unbroken glow of
+sun heat, she rejoiced with the joy of living.  But at night, in the
+solitude of her room, all her elation would leave her.  An influence
+seemed to creep over her, substituting depression; not depression
+merely, but conveying a suspicion of fear--of dread.  Of dread she knew
+not of what.  Yet it was there.  Happy, joyous, in the long hours of
+light and open, yet when the night shut down, this feeling would come
+over her--and come over her suddenly--directly she found herself in the
+solitude of her own room.  And it grew upon her more and more until she
+began to dread the time of retiring for the night--for the life of her
+she could not have told why.  Yet she kept it to herself.  It seemed
+absurd to worry her uncle over what after all was a mere fancy.  It
+would pass.  For months now, nothing had occurred to alarm her, as on
+that other night--and surely in this paradise of a country there could
+be no room for depression or haunting imaginings.  But at such times her
+thoughts flew unaccountably to Helston Varne.
+
+For by this time she had arrived at the conviction that some influence,
+sinister and terrifying, was really hanging about Heath Hover.  She had
+even tried drawing old Joe Sayers on the subject again, but that astute
+rustic, remembering his former slip, had shut up like an oyster.  With
+old Judy she met no better success.
+
+"We be wold folks," had answered that ancient, when deftly sounded as to
+why they should not take up their quarters altogether at Heath Hover on
+the ground of convenience to her--Melian.  "We likes our own chimbley
+corner o' nights,--Miss Melun.  The master, he's allus been middlin'
+cumferble o' nights without we.  And now you'm here and he's more
+cumferble nor ever--sure-lye."
+
+This, with the deft invocation of "the master," was unanswerable, as old
+Judy had intended.  That these two were not to be drawn was obvious, and
+Melian had no idea in the world of looking for information outside.  Her
+uncle too, had distinctly discouraged her taking any interest in the
+surrounding cottages, and there were few enough of these.  She began to
+think she saw through the reason.
+
+But, after all, here she was, and life was happy, she would tell
+herself; and she had found it so after some experience of it of which
+this by no means held good.  She must make the best of it, and, after
+all, the best, even by force of contrast, was very good indeed.  Yet
+still, that weird, uncanny oppression--yes, that was the word for it,
+oppression--came upon her more and more as sure as the hours of darkness
+set in.  And more and more her thoughts reverted to Helston Varne.
+
+Why had he not been again to see them after all this time?  It could be
+through no want of cordiality in repeating their invite either on her
+uncle's part or upon hers.  He was a skilled clearer-up of mysteries.
+He had told her--with some earnestness--that if ever she were in a
+difficulty, and stood in need of a friend--she was to communicate with
+him at once.
+
+And more than once she had thought of doing so--had been on the point of
+doing so--when another consideration would obtrude.  Would she not, in a
+way, be working behind her uncle?  For instance, the mystery of that
+queer, shining thing, with several points, the mere sight of which had
+turned him ashy pale and evoked a peremptory command to her to drop it--
+at once, and where she stood.  That had never been explained.  What if
+in some way it were bound up with the mystery which overhung this eerie,
+creepy old dwelling?  What if in some way it affected him--were in some
+way, patient of evil results to him?  And if Helston Varne were to give
+his wonderful faculty towards discovery at Heath Hover, he must do so
+wholly.  He would never stop halfway--and then, what about that incident
+upon which her uncle seemed to set such store of secrecy?  No, it
+wouldn't do, she decided.  It was one thing to let loose that sort of
+thing, it was another to know where it was going to end.  Yet, apart
+from it, she owned to herself she would be glad, very glad, to see
+Helston Varne again.  And then, all unexpectedly, she obtained her wish.
+
+She was standing in front of the house one morning.  The black kitten
+was on her left shoulder and she was playing with it with a bit of
+string, which it was striving to seize without falling from its perch.
+Clad in cool white, she stood erect against a background of Virginia
+creeper and one of the window frames of the old house; and the gleaming
+waves of her gold hair changed their lights with every movement of the
+head.  A perfect picture, a most exquisite picture, thought the one
+spectator, who had arrived on the scene unobserved, such a picture
+indeed as he would carry in his mind, and which he was wholly loth to
+disturb all at once.  Then a low, lighthearted laugh escaped her as the
+kitten, missing its stroke, overbalanced and dropped lightly to the
+ground.  Then looking up, she discovered she was not alone.
+
+Helston Varne raised his hat and came down the path from the sluice.
+She made a step forward to meet him.
+
+"How long were you standing there?" she said, in her bright, quick,
+animated way, when the first greetings had been exchanged.
+
+"Well, not long--unfortunately.  But I hope I have too much of an
+artistic eye to be in a hurry to break up that picture.  Is your uncle
+in?"
+
+"No.  He had to run up to London on business.  He wanted to take me,
+although he always says London is the worst place in the world to take a
+girl to for the day, unless she's got a lot of things of her own to
+attend to--which I haven't.  Says he doesn't know what to do with her.
+He more than half wanted me to go--and chance it, but I wouldn't.  I
+should only have been in the way, of course."
+
+"That's a pity.  I didn't want to see him about anything in particular,
+only as I shall have to be away from England some time, I thought I
+should just like to see how you were all getting on first."
+
+If Melian's face had fallen just a shade over the announcement, the
+change, it is certain, did not escape the keen perception of the other,
+nor could he tell why the fact should have afforded him a modicum of
+gratification.
+
+"I suppose I mustn't ask, as a matter of innocent and feminine
+curiosity, what part of the world you are bound for next?" she ventured.
+
+Even that smile as she looked up at him was not sufficient to let down
+his guard.  He shook a deprecating head.
+
+"I'm afraid not.  The element of secrecy in my movements is one of the
+very first essentials."
+
+"Why, of course.  By the way, here am I keeping you standing.  Do come
+inside.  But--where's your bicycle?  You didn't walk?"
+
+"I left my bike up there on the sluice, till I'd found out whether
+anybody was at home.  Save the bother of lugging it up again if nobody
+was."
+
+"Oh, do go and fetch it.  Some one might bag it."
+
+"They'd wish they hadn't--before they had ridden it a hundred yards," he
+answered with a laugh.  "They'd come about the most complete spill
+they'd ever come in their lives."
+
+"Why?  How?" she asked, mystified.
+
+"There's a dodge in it that would produce that result with any other
+than myself mounting it.  Incidentally, there have been two attempts
+made at annexing it--with the effect described."
+
+"That's a very wonderful machine of yours," she said.  "The other day--
+only it was months ago--you told us it was unpuncturable--now it seems
+it's unrideable, for any one but its owner."
+
+"Yes--it is rather wonderful, isn't it--Hallo?" as he became alive to
+the greetings of the kitten, which was rubbing against his legs and
+purring.  "Why, this little beauty is hardly any bigger than it was, and
+it ought to be nearly full grown by this time."
+
+"Yes, and aren't I just glad too, that it's always going to stay small.
+I was afraid it wouldn't," she answered, picking it up and replacing it
+upon her shoulder.  "But you're not pressed for time, are you?  Uncle
+Seward will be back by quite an early afternoon train, and he'd he
+awfully disgusted if he missed you--especially as you're going away."
+
+To Helston Varne this invitation was wholly alluring--he wondered that
+it should prove so much so.  And what a strange turn the situation had
+taken.  He had originally come to these parts with--professionally--
+hostile intent towards the occupier of Heath Hover; now, any discoveries
+that he might make--whatever their nature--and this he would repeat to
+himself with emphasis, he would certainly use to the aid and advantage
+of that individual, if possible.  He would have been only too glad to
+arrive at a solution, as a matter of purely professional interest only--
+but with no intention of using it by a hair's breadth against his
+new-found friend, as to which he had already begun to put Nashby off the
+scent by such modicum of suspicion as we heard him express to that
+painstaking officer.  Now he answered:
+
+"If you can do with me for all that time, Miss Seward, I shall be only
+too delighted.  What a lovely day it is.  Won't you get on your bicycle
+and show me some of the country I haven't seen?  We could pick up lunch
+at some wayside inn, and get back in time to meet your uncle."
+
+"I'd be delighted, but my bike happens to be out of commission.  It
+wants a thorough overhauling in fact.  Let's have a walk instead.  It's
+no end jolly just meandering on, winding in and out, now in a jolly
+wood--now through a field, or by a pond--in fact, just anywhere you like
+to go.  We can get back here by lunch-time.  Yes, that'll be the very
+thing.  I'll go up and get a hat--I won't be a sec."
+
+She vanished upstairs, and Helston Varne, left momentarily alone, was
+conscious of a mixed train of thought.  First of all was the certainty
+of a very delightful day before him: then, as he sat opposite the
+creeper-shaded window, his glance fell upon the couch which stood
+beneath it.  There, then, was where the stranger had been found dead.
+Instinctively he rose from his seat and went over to the couch.  It was
+the first time he had been alone in the room, and now his professional
+instincts moved him in that direction.  Yet there was nothing on earth
+to reward them in the aspect of this very plain and innocent looking
+article of furniture.  He looked at it long and earnestly--up and down,
+but no.  It suggested nothing.  Then the sound of Melian's footsteps,
+coming down the stairs recalled him to the ordinary ways of life, and he
+simply stood where he was--looking out of the window.
+
+"Which way shall we go?" she said.  "I know.  We'll go up through
+Broceliande and out on to the heath, then we'll wander round the wood on
+the other side, and down again by the head of Plane Pond."
+
+"Anywhere you like," he said.  "And your programme sounds delightful."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE DISUSED ROOM.
+
+If ever a country ramble was a success, a grand success, that one was.
+In the gnarled oak-wood dim in cool gloom, comparative, as regarded the
+flood of sunshine outside, the girl would let imagination run riot, and
+as she rattled on--fitting this and that vista into the scenes of her
+favourite romance--her companion listened, enjoying the extraordinary
+naturalness of her.  And he entered into it all, adding here and there
+an apposite suggestion, which thoroughly appealed.  Then, too, when they
+got out upon open heathland, though the time of its crimsoning had not
+yet come--and a wide sweep of rolling valley, and dark belts of firwoods
+contrasting with the brighter, richer green of oak, she would point him
+out this or that old church tower in the distance, and expatiate upon
+the archaeological treasures contained within the same, and her wide
+eyes would go bright with love of her subject, and her cheeks glow with
+the soft sun-kiss and the bracing upland air--even her words would trip
+each other up in her anxiety to get out a description.  And then Helston
+Varne would decide to himself that it was just as well he was
+strong-headed beyond the ordinary, for anything approaching the perfect
+charm of this girl at his side, he, with a large and varied experience
+of every conceivable shade and phase of life, had certainly never
+encountered.
+
+She was so natural, so intensely and confidingly natural--and therein
+lay a large measure of her charm.  There was not a grain of
+self-consciousness about her, and she talked to him throughout as though
+she had known him all her life.  It was not often he had struck anything
+approaching such an experience.  So the morning wore on--fled, rather--
+all too quickly for him at any rate; for he was enjoying this experience
+as he could not quite remember ever having enjoyed an experience before.
+
+They were near home now, threading a narrow keeper's path, through the
+thick covert.  Once she laid a light hand on his sleeve to stop him, as
+a cuckoo suddenly gurgled forth his joyous call right overhead, so near,
+in fact, as to be almost startling.
+
+"Look.  There he is.  You can see him," she whispered, gazing upward.
+"Ah, he's gone," as the bird dashed away.  "But, did you notice--he's
+got the treble note.  I don't like that.  When they get on the treble
+note it means that we'll soon hear no more of them."
+
+"Well, now you've told me something I didn't know.  Yes--I noticed the
+treble call, but I'll be hanged if I've ever noticed it before."
+
+Melian laughed--that clear, rich, joyous laugh of hers.  Incidentally he
+had noticed that before.
+
+"And I've actually been able to tell you some thing you never knew
+before.  You!  Well, Mr Varne, I do feel proud.--Wait--look."
+
+Again she laid a restraining hand upon his sleeve.  They had reached the
+pond head, and on the long expanse of glowing surface the perfect
+reflection of the tossing greenery overhanging it lay outlined as though
+cut in silver.  A waterhen with her brood was swimming across, and at
+the shrill, grating croak of the parent bird, alarmed by human
+proximity, a dozen tiny black specks rushed with hysteric flappings
+through the surface to bunch around her.
+
+"Aren't they sweet?" whispered Melian.  "Such jolly little black things!
+I've caught them two or three times when we've been out in the boat
+fishing, but they get so horribly scared that I've never done it again.
+I'm so fond of all these birds and beasts, you know, that I hate to
+think I am bothering any of them."
+
+Helston Varne merely bent his head in assent.  Curiously enough, just
+then he did not feel as if he could say anything.  A wave of thought--or
+was it a consciousness--such as he never remembered to have experienced
+before, had come over him.  He just let her talk, and was content to
+watch her.  He wanted to absorb this picture and carry it away with him
+in his mind's eye; and somehow the idea of having to go away at all, for
+a long period at any rate, had suddenly become utterly distasteful to
+him.
+
+He watched her, radiant, animated, lighthearted.  He remembered their
+talk on the road in the evening's dusk, on the last occasion of his
+visit.  He had intended to revert to it, to find out whether he could do
+anything to help in relieving her mind.  But now, looking at her, the
+idea seemed out of place.  She seemed so utterly happy, lighthearted,
+and without a care.
+
+And she?  She had wished for his presence so that she could put to him
+the matters that were troubling her, yet now that it was here, somehow
+or other she could not.  But as they wandered homeward through the
+shaded woodland path, she told him something about her past experiences,
+and he listened sympathetically, careful not to betray that he already
+knew all that she was telling him.  Then--for the path skirted the
+pond--they came to the scene of the midnight rescue in the ice; and
+suddenly Melian stopped, for an idea had struck her.
+
+"Mr Varne," she said, her eyes fixed full upon his face.  "Do you know
+that the police suspected my uncle of killing the man he had just
+saved?"
+
+"Yes.  I know."
+
+"I ask you--_you_--had they the slightest reason for that suspicion?"
+
+"Why do you ask it?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  I suppose it's because you are you; and if any one
+can see through a thing, you can."
+
+"Thanks greatly for that compliment.  I shall treasure it," he answered,
+glad of the pretext for turning a lighter vein on to what was becoming
+somewhat tense.  "Wait now,"--seeing a spasm of disappointment begin to
+flit over her face, at the fancied consciousness that she was not being
+taken seriously.  "What I was going to say is this: All tragical
+happenings of this nature, involving mystery, are bound to convey a
+certain element of suspicion.  Very well then.  This affair answers
+exactly to these conditions.  The local police, therefore, did no more
+than their duty in watching it.  But they have now realised the futility
+of doing so any longer."
+
+Melian looked up quickly.
+
+"Have they?" she said.
+
+"Yes.  You may take it from me."
+
+A breath of relief escaped her, but it was not wholehearted relief.
+This assuredly did not escape her companion's keen perception.
+
+"Tell me another thing," she said swiftly, and again looking him full in
+the face.  "I hardly like to ask it, but I will.  Was it not the
+investigation of this--mystery, that brought you down here in the first
+instance?"
+
+This was hitting straight out and no mistake.  But Helston Varne did not
+for a moment hesitate.
+
+"Yes.  It was," he said.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+For a moment neither spoke.  She was still looking him straight in the
+face, but what she read there was hardly disquieting.
+
+"And--what conclusion have you arrived at?" she went on, slowly.
+
+"The conclusion that I might just as well have remained away--but for
+one thing."
+
+The relief which had sprung to her animated, speaking face, died down
+suddenly.
+
+"And--that one thing?"
+
+"That one thing?  Why, then I should never have met you; should never
+have known such a delightful time as I have enjoyed this morning for
+instance."
+
+That killed the tragic element in the atmosphere.  Melian broke into a
+peal of clear, wholehearted laughter, not more than a third due to
+reaction, for she had a very complete sense of humour.  Her companion
+was smiling too, perfectly at ease and natural, as though he had stated
+a mere obvious fact.  There was no consciousness of having paid a
+pointed compliment about his manner, nor any manifestation of a desire
+to carry it further.
+
+"Well--it's very nice of you to say so," answered the girl, all her easy
+lightheadedness apparently restored, "because I thought I'd been talking
+your head off all the time we've been out; and if it wasn't that we seem
+to have a lot of ideas in common, should have thought I'd been boring
+you to death.  But, here we are at home again, and--I don't care how
+soon old Judy turns on lunch.  Do you?"
+
+"Candidly, I don't.  This gorgeous country air makes all that way."
+
+It is not strange that, seated opposite each other at table, in the
+cool, old-world room, the June sunlight slanting through the creepers
+which partly shaded the wide open window, Helston Varne should have let
+his imagination run riot.  In fact, he was picturing to himself this
+girl, in her uncommon beauty, her complete naturalness, her quick,
+unfeigned interest in everything, her grace of movement even in the
+smallest of things--seated thus with him--always.  Albeit those who knew
+him--even the very few who really knew him--would have reckoned it
+strange.  For since his salad days he could not call to mind any woman
+he had ever been acquainted with who could be capable of calling up such
+a suggestion.  And the two of them were there alone together; the glow
+of sunlight outside, the fragrant breaths of glorious summer wafting in
+from without.  Even a straggling wasp or two winnowing down over the
+table, was not unwelcome, as a sure guarantee that summer was here:
+rich, glowing, vernal, English summer.
+
+He talked to her--easy, very contented with the hour--and interested her
+more and more.  He told her a few strange, out of the way, bizarre
+experiences--and the girl listened, almost entranced.  This was the sort
+of thing that appealed, and she contrasted it with the boredom of
+commonplace, which she was as capable of appreciating--on the wrong
+side--as she was of appreciating these cullings from a life of action;
+of keen, intricate, intellectual unravellings of strange occurrences
+almost unimaginable in their surroundings of weird mystery.  Yet he so
+talked in no wise for the sake of talking, or to glorify himself, but
+simply and solely because it interested her; and to see that face lit up
+with vivid interest was sheer enjoyment to Helston Varne at that stage.
+And the little black fluffy kitten, as though cunningly appreciating the
+situation, was taking its toll, jumping up first upon one, then upon the
+other, nibbling daintily at this or that tidbit bestowed upon it, quite
+unrestrained by Melian, who had always set her face against spoiling it.
+
+"What a life you must have had," she said.  "But--what made you take to
+it?"
+
+"I don't know.  The sheer sporting instinct, I suppose," he answered.
+But he did not tell her as much as he had told Nashby, as to its
+perils--its continuing perils.  Then he deftly switched the conversation
+on to her own particular interests, in the result of which, when they
+got up from table, Melian said:
+
+"There's some queer old oak stuff in one of the lumber rooms upstairs if
+you'd like to look at it.  It's all jolly dusty though."
+
+"Certainly I would," he answered.  "I really do like that sort of
+thing."  And with the remark came the thought of how cheaply he had
+purchased his hour and a half's imprisonment in that ghastly ice-house
+of a vault, what time he had introduced himself here--under false
+pretences.
+
+"Come along then."
+
+She led the way upstairs.  Now by some curious instinct, Helston Varne's
+professional faculties became on the alert.  It was as though some
+mysterious instrument string had suddenly been tuned in his ear.
+
+She opened a door, and the atmosphere, albeit it was nearly midsummer,
+struck a chill through them both.  The one window was clouded up with
+cobwebs, and the dust lay thick upon everything.
+
+"We don't use this part of the house," she explained, "and we've only
+enough hands to take care of the part we do use.  Look, this is the best
+thing in the room," putting a hand upon an old sideboard of well nigh
+black oak, and then withdrawing it.  "Wait a bit.  I'll go down and get
+a duster.  This isn't fit to be touched as it is, and I want to open it
+and show you."
+
+She turned and went out of the room.  Left alone, Helston Varne set to
+while away the time by examining the old oak sideboard, and his all
+round mind at once convinced him that it would fetch a fabulous sum if
+put upon the market.  Then he went round to examine it from behind, and
+with this intent, pushed it a little away from the wall.  What was this?
+
+Something gleamed at him from the dust beneath--something bright,
+staring like an eye.  He bent down.  It was a small, star-shaped disc--a
+pentacle in fact--but on one of the points a small, triangular piece had
+been, as it were, cut out.  It was a strange object, and gazing at it,
+somehow, all sorts of queer ideas began to chase each other more or less
+confusedly through his brain.  He forgot where he was, forgot about the
+impending immediate return of Melian.  All he could do was to stare at
+the thing, and it--seemed to stare at him.
+
+What was this?  Again those ideas seemed to rush and rampage, and the
+worst of it was he could not marshal them--could not docket them.  He
+reached down to pick the thing up, and then--something seemed to hold
+him back from touching it.  Yes, there was no mistake about it.  It was
+as if a voice--a very distinct voice--were whispering in his ear.
+"Unless you are tired of life--leave it."
+
+This would never do.  With an effort of will he pulled himself together.
+Again he reached out his hand--and again more forcibly came that chill
+feeling of an unmistakable warning, and again he withdrew it.  And then,
+as though breaking the spell, the clear, sweet, fluty voice of Melian,
+returning along the passage, came to his ears.
+
+Helston Varne was conscious that a clammy perspiration had broken out
+upon his forehead.  Brushing a hand rapidly over this, he turned to face
+the door.  Then he was conscious that another voice was mingling with
+that of the girl--a male voice.  Again acting under some strange
+instinct, he moved the heavy sideboard back to its place against the
+wall, and had just done so when Melian entered, followed by her uncle.
+
+The latter, he thought, looked perturbed, nor did he fail to notice the
+swift, furtive, enquiring glance, which lighted upon the heavy piece of
+furniture.
+
+"Ah, how are you, Varne?  Been looking at musty old oak things this
+little girl tells me.  Yes, well--I dare say they're worth a lot of
+money, only they ain't mine, worse luck.  I'd jolly well send them to
+Christie's if they were, I can tell you.  I don't care for dismal old
+stuff about me.  Give me something cheerful and up-to-date and
+comfortable.  The other thing gives you the holy blues.  So does this
+room by the way,"--and he shivered.  "So if you've seen what you want,
+come down and join me in a whisky and soda."
+
+"Delighted.  Yes, that certainly must be very valuable old stuff,"
+answered the other.  "I thought it was yours."
+
+"No.  It's old Tullibard's, but it's left here to save the trouble of
+moving it anywhere else.  Well, and so you're off on another of your
+mysterious expeditions, the child tells me.  Look out, Varne.  The
+bucket that goes down the well too often--you know the old copybook
+chestnut."
+
+"Yes, and like all others of its kind, there's a fallacy behind it,"
+laughed Varne.
+
+"Perhaps.  Come along then.  This infernal room's giving me the cold
+shivers.  I believe I got a touch of the sun on the way back.  Anyhow,
+I'm not feeling at all the thing."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+After their guest had left, the remainder of the day, radiant, golden,
+cloudless as it was, seemed to take on a gloom to one of them.  What a
+very perfect companion he was, thought Melian.  She wished he were a
+near neighbour instead of putting in sporadic appearances, and then
+vanishing for ever so long.  She had refrained from telling him her
+troubles, not wanting to spoil their splendid morning ramble; now he was
+gone, for a long time perhaps, she regretted her reticence.  Later she
+had reason to regret it more.
+
+They were seated at supper.  The blinds were down and the lamp burned
+cheerfully.  Outside, a sudden gust swirled round the corner of the
+house, setting the woodland trees rustling.
+
+"Ah--ah!" said Melian.  "That spells change.  I thought it was too
+perfectly clear to last."
+
+Another gust stronger than the first, followed upon her words.
+
+"Why, it is coming on to blow," she went on.  "And look; it has blown
+the old cellar door open."
+
+She was sitting so as to face this.  Mervyn with his back to it.  She
+could not fail to notice the sudden, almost startled look as he turned
+quickly to follow the direction of her glance.
+
+_The door was open_.
+
+About one quarter open it stood, framing a black gash, whence the cold
+chill of a draught came pouring into the room--open, just as it had
+stood six months ago.  And now, as then, it had been fast locked.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+THE SNIPER.
+
+Overhead the gloomy rock walls reared up on either side for many hundred
+feet, seeming in places well nigh to meet, in others, leaning outward so
+as completely to obliterate the narrow blue thread of sky.  Loose
+stones, round stones, every conceivable shape of stone, large and small,
+constituted the natural paving of the natural roadway, and slipped and
+rattled under the tired, stumbling hoofs of the two horsemen; the three
+rather, for the rear was brought up at a respectful distance by a
+mounted syce.
+
+It was cool in the depths of the great chasm, cool but strangely stuffy.
+Both Europeans were in khaki suits, quite looking like having seen
+service, and wore Terai hats.  Each carried a business-like magazine
+rifle--and, incidentally, knew thoroughly well how to use it when
+occasion demanded.  And each had been so using it, but for peaceful
+purpose, for they were returning from a fairly successful markhor stalk
+in the craggy range, of which this chasm, cleaving the heart of an
+otherwise unbroken mass of rock, formed a natural roadway.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Helston," the older of the two men was saying.
+"This is no sort of place to go through during the rainy season.  The
+water rushes down it as through a spout.  I've had a narrow squeak or
+two in just such a tube as this before."
+
+"Yes.  You can see that.  There's high watermark."
+
+The other followed his upward glance.  Just a few scarcely perceptible
+bits of stick and dry grass quite twenty feet overhead.
+
+"By Jove, Helston, but what an eye you've got.  And you're new to this
+end of the country too."
+
+"Yes.  I've got an eye--for trifles--as you say, Coates," returned
+Helston Varne.  "But I only wish some of the things I've got to--I've
+had to--clear up, were as easy to deduce as that--only I don't, because
+it would eliminate the sporting element altogether.  By the way, there's
+some one coming from the opposite direction.  We shall meet directly,
+but I hope it isn't a lot of beastly loaded camels, or Heaven only knows
+how we are going to pass each other."
+
+"What?  Why you've got an ear as well as an eye.  Blest if _I_ can hear
+anything."
+
+"Not, eh?"  Then, after a moment of listening--"By Jingo, yes--it is
+camels."
+
+Now the sound grew audible to all, that of deep toned voices and the
+roll and rattle of loose stones, and soon, round a bend of the rock wall
+appeared a characteristic and extremely picturesque group.
+
+There might have been ten or a dozen men.  The one who led was mounted
+on a fine camel, but the rest were afoot.  Another camel brought up the
+rear, loaded with baggage.  They were tall, hook-nosed, copper coloured
+men, with jetty beards and an equally jetty tress flowing down in front
+over each shoulder.  They were clad in loose white garments, and their
+heads surmounted by the ample turban wound round the conical _kulla_--
+and all were armed with the inevitable and razor-edged tulwar, three or
+four indeed carrying rifles besides.  At sight of the Europeans they
+halted, and their looks were not friendly.  In point of fact these
+expressed distinct suspiciousness, partly dashed with a restrained
+combination of fanatical and racial hatred.  But the whole group was
+splendidly in keeping with the stern wildness of its background.
+
+"Now how the devil are we going to pass each other, and who's going to
+give way?" mused Varne Coates in an undertone.  Helston said nothing.
+His mind was absorbed entirely with taking in and thoroughly
+appreciating the effect of the picture.
+
+"Salaam, brothers," began Coates, speaking Hindustani: "This _tangi_ is
+over narrow for two parties to pass each other.  Is it not wider a
+little back, the way you have come?"
+
+The look of hostility on the dark faces seemed to deepen ever so
+slightly.  To Helston's acute observation it deepened more than
+slightly.
+
+"Or the way _you_ have come," came the answer from more than one voice.
+But the man on the camel said nothing, perhaps because he did not
+understand--or as a freeborn mountaineer, did not choose to understand--
+the language of servants--of slaves.  But he did not look friendly.
+Things were at a decided deadlock.
+
+There was just barely room to pass, but only then by floundering up the
+most rugged part of the dry watercourse.  But Varne Coates, Commissioner
+of Baghnagar, and temporarily quartered on leave at the frontier station
+of Mazaran for the purposes chiefly of markhor stalking, was
+temperamentally a peppery man, and traditionally entirely opposed to the
+idea of giving way to natives whoever they might be.  And it looked
+uncommonly as though he would have to do so now.
+
+"Here, Gholam Ali," he called back over his shoulder to the syce.  "You
+talk to these people.  They don't seem to understand _me_."
+
+The man came forward, and Helston was not slow to notice that his tones,
+as he talked, were respectful, not to say deferential.  The face of the
+camel rider the while was that of a mask.  He uttered a few laconic
+words in a deep toned voice, and in Pushtu.
+
+"_Hazur_, it is a sirdar of the Gularzai," translated the syce, "His
+name Allah-din Khan.  He does not know the _Hazur_, and this is his
+country.  _Hazur_, he says, does not belong to the _Sirkar_ here [the
+Government, or administration], but is a stranger.  Further down the
+_tangi_ is a wide space where all can pass one another.  `Let those who
+come _up_ then make way for those who come _down_.'  Those are the words
+of the sirdar."
+
+Here was an _impasse_.  Helston Varne noticed on his kinsman's face a
+sort of apoplectic tendency to grow purple.  He realised that the
+situation was critical--very.  He noticed likewise that the expression
+on the faces of the opposite party was one of scowling determination,
+but he further noticed that there was nothing insolent or provocative in
+it.  This seemed to save the situation.  His keen brain saw a way out.
+It was rather a funny one, but it might answer.
+
+"See now, Gholam Ali," he said, in Hindustani, of which he had a
+thorough knowledge.  "When we sportsmen have a difference we throw up a
+coin, and decide according to choice whether the King's head is
+uppermost or not.  The Gularzai are sportsmen like ourselves.  So we can
+toss up for who shall give way."
+
+He produced a rupee, and watched the face of the chief while this was
+put to him.  The latter gave a slight nod, and said a word or two to his
+followers.  They crowded forward.
+
+"What does the sirdar say?" went on Helston.  "The King's head or the
+other side?"
+
+"The King's head," was the answer.
+
+"Good.  Let one of them throw up the rupee," said Helston, handing it
+over.
+
+A tall, hook-nosed barbarian came forward, and taking the coin, sent it
+spinning high in the air.  It came down with a clink, rebounded, and
+settled.  The King's head was undermost.
+
+"`Tails.'  We've won," said Helston, looking up.  "But if they'd like
+two out of three, we can call again."
+
+But the sirdar shook his head.
+
+"It is child's play," he said.  "Still--a test is a test--and a game a
+game.  We keep to it."
+
+And to the intense relief of at any rate two of them, he turned his
+camel round, and retraced his way up the _tangi_, followed by his
+retinue.
+
+"Well I'm damned!" was all that Coates could muster.
+
+"No you're not.  We've got round that hobble," answered his kinsman
+placidly.  "It was rather a funny situation though, wasn't it.  Fancy
+tossing for priority of way, bang, so to speak, in the heart of the
+earth.  Well, Allah-din Khan is a sportsman anyhow."
+
+"Is he?  Wait a bit.  We haven't _passed_ him yet."  And the answer
+carried a potential suggestiveness, which, under the circumstances, was
+unpleasant.
+
+However, such was not borne out by events.  A few hundred yards higher
+up, the _tangi_ widened out considerably, and here they found the sirdar
+and his following awaiting them.  Helston said a few pleasant and
+courteous words as they passed, which were gravely but not sullenly,
+received.  But the hostile stare on the faces of the chief's following,
+there was no mistaking.
+
+"That's what comes of sending the escort on ahead," said Varne Coates.
+"If they'd been along we needn't have stood any nonsense from Mr
+Allah-din Khan.  It would have been man for man then, or very nearly,
+and a good deal more than rifle for rifle."
+
+"Don't know it isn't a good thing that we did," answered the other with
+some conviction.  "The evenness of numbers would probably have brought
+on a row.  And I'm perfectly certain any one of those chaps is equal to
+any two of ours, if not three."
+
+"But the rifles?"
+
+"Even then, they wouldn't have given us time to use them.  No.  I think
+we're well out of that racket, Coates."
+
+"All right.  I shall be glad to see camp anyhow.  I'm yearning for a
+long, stiff, cool peg.  Wrangling and getting into a wax is very dry
+work.  Well, we're not far off now, thank the Lord."
+
+The _tangi_ was widening out considerably.  The cliffs no longer rose
+sheer and facing each other, but had changed into tumbling crags and
+pinnacles, and terraced ledges, while beyond lay a glimpse of more open
+country.  But on one hand the mouth of the pass was dominated by a huge,
+magnificent cliff wall.
+
+"Look there," cried Coates, glancing at a point halfway up this where
+some objects were moving.  "Markhor--three of them!  But they are wild.
+At that height they ought to be standing calmly staring at us, and
+they're off already as if the devil was after them."
+
+And as the words left his mouth, the answer--the explanation--came,
+startlingly, unpleasantly.
+
+For an echoing roar broke from the cliff front just below the point they
+had been scanning, and something heavy and vicious and convincing
+thudded hard with a "klopf" against a boulder just to the right of
+Helston.  The rock face was marked as with the splatter of blue lead.
+
+"We're being sniped, by God?" exclaimed Coates, reining in.  The syce
+had instinctively drawn behind the nearest boulder, and had dismounted.
+
+Again came the crash, together with a score of bellowing reverberations
+as the echoes tossed from crag to crag.  This time the missile shaved
+the neck of Helston's horse so close as to set that noble animal
+snorting and curvetting in such wise that the rider was put to some
+trouble to keep his seat.
+
+"This is damn silly," growled Coates.  "Well, there's nothing for it but
+to take cover and think it out.  If we could only get a glimpse of the
+_soor_."
+
+There were many loose boulders at the entrance to the chasm, and only in
+the nick of time did they get behind two of these.  For a third bullet
+hummed over the very spot, now in empty air, a fraction of a second ago
+occupied by Helston and his horse.
+
+"He's getting our range now, and no mistake," went on Coates.  "Now we
+must try and get his.  Just about halfway up the _khud_ there, below
+where we sighted the markhor."
+
+For some minutes there was no further sign.  The sniper seeing now
+nothing to snipe at, did not snipe.  Meanwhile he was enjoying the fun
+of keeping two of the ruling race crouching behind rocks for their
+lives.  He had the best part of the day before him to enjoy it in, for
+it was quite early afternoon, and his time was all his own.  When they
+came out into the open, as sooner or later they would be sure to do--for
+they were but scantily endowed with the saving grace of patience, these
+infidels--then he would have them; the whole three, with good fortune;
+only he would spare the syce perhaps, because he was a believer.
+
+"This is a nice cheerful country, Coates, and a fairly eventful day of
+it," remarked Helston.  "First, we as nearly as possible have a hand to
+hand scrap for the right to pass an exceedingly cut-throat looking gang
+of ruffians, then no sooner are we clear of that than we have to slink
+behind stones like scared rabbits, because some sportsman unknown takes
+it into his head that we make very good moving targets at a given
+distance.  And I don't quite see the way out, that's the worst of it.
+Do you?"
+
+"Not unless we can get a sight on the _budmash_," was the reply.  "I've
+put mine at four hundred yards."
+
+"Yes.  That would do it," agreed Helston.  "Stop.  I've got an idea--
+give me a leg up to the top of this boulder.  There are several loose
+stones there that I can get behind, and use as sort of loopholes."
+
+"Better not.  He'll have you there to a dead cert," warned the other.
+
+"I'll chance that.  So.  That's it."
+
+Whether the sniper had seen this move, or whether he himself was tired
+of inaction, another bullet now pinged hard and viciously against the
+boulder itself.  This just suited Helston Varne.  He was able in that
+moment's flash to locate the lurking place of their enemy, and himself,
+lying flat, was able to get his piece forward, and cover it.  With the
+aid of a loophole-like formation of the stones he felt that he could not
+miss.
+
+"Work the dummy trick, Coates," he called back, in a low voice.  "Draw
+his fire somehow.  I've got the spot exactly covered, and--I think we
+shall soon be on our road again."
+
+"All right," came back the answer.  "I'll give a cough when I'm all
+ready to show the lure."
+
+It was a strange drama this duel between hidden foes, and for its
+setting one of the wildest scenes of wild Nature.  The mountain side
+opposite, rising in huge terraced cliffs, the ledges affording sparse
+hold for a scanty growth of pistachio shrub.  Beneath, the stones and
+boulders of the now dry watercourse, and behind, the craggy entrance to
+the great _tangi_.  No vegetation either, save coarse dry grass, no sign
+of life, unless a cloud of kites, wheeling in circles high overhead,
+against the blue.  And, facing each other, unseen, two units of humanity
+lay there, each bent on relieving the human race of one.  Then Varne
+Coates coughed.
+
+But simultaneously, with the echoing roar from the cliff face, Helston
+pressed trigger.  The sound from opposite was not that of a missile
+striking a hard substance.
+
+"Got him," he said, quietly.  "Yes.  He's done.  I could see it plainly.
+He got it just under the chin, as he was watching the effect of his
+pull-off."
+
+"The effect of his pull-off," said Coates, "is that he's got the range
+plumb by now, and if anything had been inside the boot I stuck out, its
+owner would have gone very lame for life.  Look hereat it."  And he held
+it up showing a hole neatly drilled just above the ankle.  "Sure you've
+got him though?"
+
+"So sure that--Well, look."
+
+Helston had slid down from his coign of vantage, and now deliberately
+walked forth into the open.  Here he stood for a few moments, gazing up
+at the cliff.
+
+"That's practical faith at any rate," said Coates, grimly.  "Yes, you
+certainly must have `got him,' or he'd have got you by this.  Still,
+it's risky.  There might have been two of them."
+
+"There might, but there weren't."
+
+"How the deuce could you tell that?"
+
+"By the systematic way the _one_ was getting the range."
+
+"Oh, good old Sherlock Holmes again!" laughed Coates.  "Now we can head
+for that `peg' I was yearning for just now, and in dry fact--devilish
+_dry_--have been ever since."
+
+"What are we going to do about--that?" said Helston, with a nod in the
+direction of their late menace.
+
+"Do?  Why, not say a damn thing about it to anybody.  Gholam Ali won't
+for his own sake.  He's half a Pathan himself and knows better than to
+advertise trouble.  Yes, as you were saying--it's a nice cheerful
+country this, not dull by any means."
+
+The other laughed significantly.
+
+"No," he said.  "But this time it's a case of the sniper sniped."
+
+And then they both laughed.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+CAMP--AND A CONVERSATION.
+
+The camp was pitched in open ground, and had the drawback of that--for
+there were no shading trees or sheltering heights, as to which Varne
+Coates remarked that it didn't matter a curse about shading trees if
+only that any moment a swarm of locusts might happen along and feed off
+all the "shade" within half an hour or so, leaving them as bare as Hyde
+Park in January; while as for the sheltering heights, well they had just
+seen what those could "shelter"--and it was better to be out of range of
+such.
+
+The point on which the camp was pitched could certainly boast no charm
+of picturesqueness.  It stared out upon open plains destitute of
+foliage, and rendered here and there even more ugly by low humps of
+hill, whose mud coloured domes were relieved here and there by white
+streaks of gypsum.  Bounding it on both sides, but at some little
+distance, rose craggy mountain ridges, good stalking ground for
+_markhor_ and _gadh_, and, from another side of the operation, the same,
+as we have seen, for the Gularzai sniper.  But the big living tent was
+roomy, and as replete with such travelling comfort as only
+comfort-loving India somehow, seemed ever able to run to: and the
+sleeping tents, too, were not wanting in that much to be appreciated
+advantage.  These, and the tents of the various servants, the khansamah
+tent, and those of the Levy sowars who formed the escort, made up quite
+a respectable sized nomad village.
+
+"Wonder if Ford'll turn up to-morrow," remarked Coates, as they sat
+smoking their after-dinner cheroots under the stars in front of the big
+tent.  Ford was the Conservator of Forests for the district of Mazaran--
+incidentally there were no "forests" worthy of the name in the said
+district, but Ford was Forest Officer nevertheless, and drew his pay as
+such all the same.
+
+"Ford?  Oh, yes, of course," answered Helston, shooting out a big trail
+of smoke and pulling himself out of a big meditation in which he had
+been wrapped.  "Yes.  He'll do.  He's all right."
+
+"Yes.  And on this infernal frontier it's not a bad thing to have
+another hard man around who can shoot straight.  These _soors_ don't
+love us any too well--as you've seen to-day."
+
+It might be asked under the circumstances why the devil two men should
+be such fools as to go putting their heads into the lion's mouth, by
+camping around here and there right in the heart of a wild country
+peopled by hostile and fanatical barbarians, just for the sake of
+shooting a few wild goats.  But--there you are.  They were Englishmen,
+and this, we suppose, is an all sufficing answer.
+
+"What a rum thing it is, Helston," went on Coates, jumping to another
+subject, "that you should have run into my old pal Seward Mervyn.  I've
+often thought about it, do you know?"
+
+"Yes, but the world's very small.  Yet, I'm not sure that England, that
+little bit of an island on the map, isn't the largest section of it--as
+far as running into people goes."
+
+"Why it must be some years since I saw him.  He must be ageing."
+
+"I should say not.  He struck me as a remarkably wiry and energetic sort
+of man."
+
+"Energetic?  Yes.  He was too much that," said the other.  "He was
+always wanting to know everything.  In point of fact, strictly between
+ourselves--he got to know too much."
+
+"Did he?  In what direction?"
+
+The tone was even, languid; the tone, in short, of a man who is enjoying
+his after-dinner smoke in the open air after a day of hard healthful
+exercise.  But in reality the speaker suddenly found himself all
+athrill.
+
+"Oh, he wanted to find out everything about the people--and there are
+about fifty different sorts and phases of people on the Northern border
+alone.  Not content with getting behind their different character and
+manners and customs--and this is between ourselves, mind," and the
+speaker instinctively lowered his voice--"he got himself mixed up in
+their secret societies."
+
+"The deuce he did!"
+
+"Yes.  Said he wanted to know the whole thing thoroughly, and everything
+about it, and that was the only way of getting to do so.  But he ended
+by biting off rather more than he could chew."
+
+"How?"
+
+"How?  Well now you're getting rather beyond me, old chap.  I can only
+tell you that he retired suddenly, but not a day too soon.  The climate
+of India became no longer healthy for him, you understand."
+
+There was no misunderstanding the significance of the speaker's tone.
+Helston Varne was becoming more and more vividly interested.
+
+"So?  Did he turn the knowledge he'd gained to official account then?"
+he said.  "Go back on them, for instance?"
+
+"There again I can't tell you anything definite.  But some of us--very
+few of us--know that he didn't retire a day too soon."
+
+"H'm," and Helston Varne selected another cheroot from the box and
+lighted it slowly and deliberately.  "But I thought these secret
+societies were far reaching, indeed world-wide reaching.  Would he be
+much safer--or any safer at all--anywhere he went?"
+
+"That too, is more than I can say.  But you saw something of him at
+home.  Did he seem all right there?  You say he's buried in some out of
+the way country place.  Well, did it strike you he might be--what shall
+we say--sort of in hiding?"
+
+"N-no.  I can't say it did, exactly.  He told me he'd lost a lot of dibs
+over some damn silly invention he'd thought to make a pot over, and was
+glad to live in a shack which he got for nothing because it was supposed
+to be haunted."
+
+Outwardly cool, the speaker was conscious of a stirring awakening.  He
+began to see light--vivid light, but he was not going to give things
+away.  His kinsman clearly had never heard of the Heath Hover mystery,
+and now to him, Helston Varne, the Heath Hover mystery began to take on
+an interest which had been dropping of late to expiring point.
+
+It is strange how a long sought solution will suddenly come as in a
+flash.  The Heath Hover mystery had so far baffled this man to whom the
+unravelling of mysteries was as the breath of life, baffled him because
+there had been absolutely nothing to go upon.  Once he had thought there
+was, and that was the day he had been an unwilling prisoner in the Heath
+Hover cellar.  But that had evaded him, and since then he had owned
+himself puzzled.  And now just a few casual conversational remarks let
+fall by his kinsman, here, away on the Indian frontier, seemed to let a
+whole flood of light in upon it.  At that moment indeed he was very
+nearly piecing together the whole puzzle.  His said kinsman's voice
+broke the absorption of his thoughts.
+
+"Hand the cheroot box across, Helston--Thanks--By the way you were
+saying, if I remember right, that Mervyn had got a niece stopping with
+him.  What's she like?"
+
+"Lovely."
+
+The other whistled.
+
+"Fact.  I don't often wax superlative, Coates, but nothing short of
+superlative will define her appearance."
+
+"Oh-h!" said Coates, significantly.  But Helston took absolutely no
+notice.
+
+"And the strange part is that she doesn't even know it," he went on,
+"which constitutes not the least part of the charm."
+
+"Doesn't she?  That's rather a tall story to swallow, Helston."
+
+"I agree.  But it happens to be true."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Seward.  She's his sister's child.  But she might just as well be his
+own as far as their relationship goes.  In fact there are precious few
+to whom their own children are as much."
+
+"Yes, I remember.  Mervyn used to talk of that affair.  He always
+objected to his brother-in-law, said he was a cross between a waster and
+a jackass, but mostly jackass.  He objected too, on the ground of near
+relationship, for I believe they were first or second cousins."
+
+"Well I can tell you, Miss Seward forms a very complete exception to the
+generally received opinion on that subject.  She's all there, and no
+mistake."
+
+His kinsman was relighting his cheroot, which was burning badly, and in
+the flare of the vesta Helston could see the significant grin which was
+wreathing his lined, bronzed features; understood its burden too.  But
+he said nothing--except:
+
+"What sort of man was Mervyn when he was over here, Coates?"
+
+"Sort?  Oh he was a man of--bouts, for want of a definition.  He had his
+equable bouts, and his gloomy bouts, his peppery bouts and his gusty
+bouts, and sometimes downright nasty and cynical bouts.  They didn't
+overlap either, but were as hard and fast apart by rule and line as the
+watertight compartments of a ship.  Still, all round, he was all right.
+I could stick him better than most people, and we were very `pal-ly' he
+and I.  He was a fine sportsman too."
+
+"Didn't he ever marry?"
+
+"Now you ask, he did make--that mistake.  But it didn't last long--not
+more than a year or two.  Bad egg you know.  Did a bunk--I forget
+whether it was a Police wallah or a civilian.  They didn't get far
+though, for they were both lost in the _Tara_, when she foundered with
+nearly all on board going home, you'll remember.  Mervyn was rather
+relieved, as it saved him the bother and expense and scandal of taking
+proceedings.  But he didn't repeat the mistake.  Well, now--that's
+Mervyn."
+
+"Yes.  That's Mervyn," repeated Helston.  "It seems to form a whole
+epitome of him."
+
+His mind reverted to Heath Hover, and his mind's eye seemed to form a
+picture--of the lonely, self-contained man--dry, gruff in manner and
+biting in conversation--that of course before the arrival of Melian, for
+he was judge enough to deduce that Mervyn had sloughed a great deal of
+those characteristics since that sunny presence had been there to
+irradiate the solitary and secluded habitation, and to melt the sour
+hardness of an atrophied life.
+
+"What do you think will be the end of Mervyn?" he went on, after a
+pause.  The other started.
+
+"The end of--Eh--what?  The end of Mervyn?  Good Lord!  I hadn't given
+it a thought.  But why?  What on earth should have put that into your
+head, Helston?"
+
+"Perhaps it's been in my head for some time--almost from the moment I
+first saw the man.  He's remarkably outside the ordinary, and I'm always
+genuinely interested in such."
+
+"Quite sure you're not `genuinely interested' in some one else, old
+chap?" said Coates, slily.
+
+"I'm quite sure that I am--and that very much so," came the perfectly
+unperturbed reply.  "But to come back to Mervyn, you haven't answered my
+question."
+
+"Well, how the blazes can I?  I've never given it a thought I tell you."
+
+"Well, I have.  Do you think for instance, he'll ever come out here
+again?"
+
+"Not if he's wise," came the decided answer.
+
+"I should say he was that--from what I saw of him.  Still I have an
+idea--and a strong one--that he will come out here again."
+
+"Did he talk about doing so, then?"
+
+"Never.  But, don't be surprised if ever he does."
+
+"I'll try not.  But--look here, old Sherlock Holmes.  What are you
+getting at?  Eh?"
+
+"Nothing wonderful.  Only I'm interested in--Mervyn."
+
+The other stared--then began to put two and two together.  His kinsman
+had been "superlative" on the subject of the girl--not effusively so,
+but quietly, and therefore all the more forcibly so, and being
+superlative on the subject of anybody spelt a great deal as coming from
+Helston Varne.  Could it be that Mervyn was in opposition and he would
+gladly see Mervyn removed?  Yet that hardly seemed to hang, for he
+gathered that the two men were on the friendliest of terms.
+
+"If he comes out here again," he now answered, "I'm afraid the end of
+him won't be far off.  It may not be lingering, but it'll be sudden."
+
+"That'd be a pity.  Yet--do you know.  I have it somewhere down,
+Coates--somewhere down--that it mightn't be the worst thing for him--for
+Mervyn--to come out here again.  I can't tell you where I have it, but
+it's there."
+
+Varne Coates began to feel really interested.  He had an immense respect
+for the acumen of his younger relative, and for the almost superhuman
+judgment and skill wherewith the latter had probed some of the most
+delicate and baffling mysteries whose enlightenment had ever startled
+the world--no less than for the intrepidity and dash which had secured
+his individual safety in perilous crises involved in such.  Be it
+remembered that he knew nothing of the connexion of Mervyn with any such
+mystery as the one in question, yet now for the first time he began to
+scent something of the kind.  He also began to scent underlying romance.
+
+"Well I give it up, old chap," he answered with a laugh.  "Give it up
+clean.  You've always got something mysterious up your sleeve, but I
+suppose it'll all come out in God's good time--and yours.  Though if
+Mervyn did come out I'd be jolly glad to see him, and have a cheery old
+_bukh_ together again--and a little _shikar.  Kwai-hai_!"
+
+The bearer padded up in answer to the resounding call, and salaamed.
+
+"_Peg lao_, Bolaki Ram," said his master, and in obedience a bottle and
+a syphon and two tall tumblers were set out on the camp table before
+them.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Helston Varne, lying on his charpoy in his sleeping tent, felt very far
+removed indeed from going to sleep.  To begin with, his relative's
+information with regard to Mervyn had given him abundant food for
+thought.  It had pieced together a great deal that had been wanting, and
+it had also carried him back largely to Heath Hover and that which Heath
+Hover contained.  Strong-headed as strong framed, this man in the very
+zenith of his prime, had found out his weak spot--and, why should he
+not--so he now told himself?  Nothing--nobody--within the ordinary had
+ever touched him.  Now he had found something--somebody--outside the
+ordinary--clean outside the ordinary.  He recalled vividly that last
+meeting at the head of Plane Pond, under the sprouting green leafage of
+early spring in the Plane woods.  He had decided it should not be the
+last, and when Helston Varne decided anything, it was strange if that
+contingency should fail to befall.  He remembered vividly those trustful
+blue eyes, so clear and straight, and withal appealing in their glance.
+And now he was effecting the substance of their appeal, for he had not
+come to this wild and turbulent end of the earth, either by accident or
+for his own amusement--and then a short, wholly mirthful laugh escaped
+him as he remembered how he had gone down to help Nashby over the
+unravelling of the Heath Hover mystery.  Heavens, how that worthy rural
+police inspector would have stared could he have so much as guessed at
+what that real unravelling would lead up to!  But the situation was
+changed now, for in such unravelling Nashby was clean counted out.  He,
+the unraveller, was wholly in the interest of the other side.
+
+Far out over the plain a wolf howled, and was answered by another.
+Something in the sound brought back that of the owls hooting in the
+Plane woods, and "Broceliande," and the contrast to the present
+surroundings came out sharply defined.  Why their adventures of that
+very day seemed to make the other remote and commonplace--though there
+was one element about it which reflected the very reverse of
+commonplace.  Even his well regulated system seemed to stir uneasily at
+the thought, and stretched upon his charpoy here at midnight in one of
+the wildest tracts of wilderness in the world, Helston Varne felt as if
+sleep would never visit him again.
+
+The wolves howled, this time nearer.  He could hear the half alarmed
+snort of one or two of the picketted horses, and a restless camel
+indulge in its characteristic, swearing snarl.  He got up and mixed
+himself another peg, lit a fresh cheroot, then lay down again, staring
+at the tent roof and thinking--thinking back.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+A STARTLER FOR HELSTON VARNE.
+
+High up amid the soaring pinnacles of the craggy world Helston Varne and
+his shikari were worming their way in stealthy silence, now round a
+corner where every hand and foothold had to be carefully tested before
+trusted, now along a rock ledge whose crannies alone supplied both--or
+again along a steep slope of scaly slag, hardly less slippery than ice.
+But on either or any of these delectable samples of _terra firma_ a
+single slip would carry the same result--an abrupt descent of hundreds
+of feet, with not an unbroken bone on arrival at the bottom.  It
+required an iron nerve, and the perfection of muscular, and generally
+physical, condition.  Furthermore, having regard to the object of its
+undertaking, it must be accomplished in the most perfect silence.  And
+all this for the sake of shooting a wild goat--or at any rate making a
+sporting attempt at the achievement of that feat!  For this particular
+point was one of the best places for markhor in the whole range.
+
+Like master like man.  The shikari, Hussein Khan, was a hard
+mountaineer, all muscle and keenness.  He was a Pathan of the Kakhar
+tribe and had an immense respect for his master, primarily because the
+latter was his equal in both these attributes, and also for another
+reason which may or may not appear.
+
+The time was the middle of the forenoon.  They should have arrived at
+this point earlier, but the climb had proved more difficult and
+dangerous than either had anticipated, and both were sufficiently
+experienced to know that it was one that no amount of keenness would
+enable them to rush.  But for hours they had clambered thus, and now,
+mere specks against the brown, craggy mountain side, they paused for a
+blow; for you cannot take a steady aim when winded after real hard
+exertion.  Incidentally to one of them the pause was due to another
+motive, for Hussein Khan was a true believer, and was not this the hour
+of prayer?  So cramped on the ledge, with barely enough space for the
+prescribed prostrations, the follower of the Prophet, his face turned in
+the direction of the Holy City--as to which he was able to judge by the
+hang of the sun, and that with marvellous accuracy--having put off his
+shoes and spread his _chudda_--went to work at the same, as entirely
+absorbed from the world as though kneeling on the even flooring of some
+cool, dim mosque.  The "infidel" meanwhile, took the opportunity of a
+bite from a sandwich and a pull at his flask.
+
+But the creed of Islam is a very work-a-day one, so the shikari's
+devotions did not take long, a few minutes at the outside.  He rose
+again, rested in body and satisfied in conscience, and the pair resumed
+their way.  A very short bout of additional clambering, and they looked
+out from among a jumble of pinnacles and crags upon the world beyond and
+beneath.
+
+Beyond, a grand crescent of rock terrace and crag, akin to that on which
+they lay.  On the one hand a great peak, towering skyward, a roll of
+dark juniper forest in waves around its base, then a marvellous
+formation of dome-like rock surface all interseamed with dark fissures,
+like the crevasses on a glacier, and beneath, nearer still, a valley
+bottom, through which a mountain torrent coursed.  But between this and
+themselves, sloping down from the foot of the ragged cliff immediately
+below where they lay, was an open, grassy strip.  Helston brought the
+rifle to his shoulder.
+
+Too late.  Four markhor were bounding and scampering away, as though for
+dear life.  They had been browsing on this open slope, just where the
+stalkers had expected to find them.
+
+"Don't shoot, _Hazur_," whispered the shikari.  "It would only panic
+them, and lose us our chance of getting round them, for I think they
+will not go very far."
+
+Helston recognised the force of this advice, and forebore to risk a
+long, flying shot.  Yet the result of hours of toil was vanishing from
+sight at the rate of many miles per hour.
+
+"It is written," he answered.  "Yet, I think, Hussein Khan, the ram that
+led those three was the father of all markhor in these mountains, for
+never did I see a larger one, nor even so large a one.  Assuredly the
+eye of Shaitan is upon our luck to-day."
+
+"Who may say, _Hazur_?  Yonder, perhaps, he is."
+
+The man's face broadened in a whimsical smile, displaying magnificent
+white teeth.  Helston followed his glance.  A splendid eagle, black as
+jet, was soaring in majestic circles over the valley.  It alone, set in
+the surroundings, formed a sight that it was almost worth their toil and
+trouble to obtain, he thought.
+
+"Shaitan or not, Hussein Khan," he answered, "that is not enough to
+frighten four full grown markhor, especially with such a leader as that
+ram, for he is the king of all markhor I have ever seen.  And now--
+what?"
+
+But the other made no reply.  He gave a peremptory sign for silence, the
+while he himself was listening intently.  Instinctively Helston followed
+his example, and crouched lower still upon the slab of rock whereto he
+had wormed himself, to obtain, as he thought, a most effective shot.
+But his nerves tingled and his blood fired up.  The shikari, with his
+fine sense of hearing, had detected the sound of other markhor
+approaching.  That was it.  He would get his chance after all.
+
+His faculties of hearing stretched to their utmost tension he listened.
+Most men would have been conscious of a tingling of the nerves, but the
+nerves of Helston Varne were as hard and as well in hand as those of the
+Pathan shikari himself.  Yet he would soon have reason to congratulate
+himself that they were so.
+
+Now the rattle of a dislodged stone came to his hearing, then a sound of
+hoof-strokes, but to that practised sense of hearing it conveyed no
+presage of the approach of mountain game.  With the recollection of the
+sniping episode fresh in his memory, he appreciated his attendant's
+emphatic injunction for silence, for caution.  In this wild and shaggy
+land, the hand of everybody was against the intruder, the infidel.  And
+as he gazed, the turbaned heads of a band of horsemen came into view
+above the rocks below.
+
+They were advancing up the valley.  They were as yet too distant for
+detail.  Helston made a move to get out his powerful binocular.  But
+Hussein Khan laid a warning hand upon his arm.
+
+"Leave that, _Hazur_," he breathed.  "Those who go yonder have eyes--
+like those of the eagle we sighted just now.  One glint of the sun upon
+the glasses, and--"
+
+The gap was significant.  Knowing the state of the country and the
+temper of its people, Helston could supply it very well.  And, indeed,
+his sight was not less keen than that of his shikari.  He lay still and
+watched with interested expectation.
+
+The band was now defiling into full view, but still advancing, head on;
+he could not quite distinguish the figures apart; but that they were all
+armed he could see plainly.  Some had rifles, others the native
+sickle-stocked _jezail_, and all wore the universal fulwar, hung by a
+broad sabretasche from the right shoulder.
+
+"Who--what are they?" he whispered.
+
+"Gularzai," breathed Hussein Khan, in reply.  "See, at the head rides
+the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan."
+
+With something of a start of interest Helston recognised the man named.
+Now, mounted on a fine horse, looking very warrior-like and martial at
+the head of his wild band, was the man with whom he had tossed for right
+of way in the _tangi_ but a week or two since.  And then--he saw
+something else, and the sight sent all the blood back to his heart.
+
+He stared, then stared again.  No.  It could not be.
+
+The band, amounting to some score of horsemen, was nearly abreast of
+them now, riding at a foot's pace, as indeed the rocky nature of the
+ground demanded.  But in the midst of it rode two figures which belonged
+certainly not to the Gularzai, or to any known tribe or race within our
+Indian possessions.  They were unmistakably Europeans and represented
+both sexes.  And then Helston Varne got the surprise of his life.
+Indeed, he began to wonder whether he were dreaming or delirious, for
+there--now immediately beneath him, in the midst of this wild band of
+predatory mountaineers rode John Seward Mervyn and his niece.
+
+Heavens! what did it mean--what could it mean?  These two, whom he had
+left safe in quiet, peaceful, rural England, not so very long since--
+here now, in this shaggy, perilous wilderness, and for escort an armed
+band of savage, fanatical tribesmen.  What could it mean?  At all risks
+he would get out his binocular and scan them more closely.  Yes, at all
+risks.  And this he put to his shikari.  The latter slightly shrugged
+one shoulder, impassively.
+
+Under the powerful lens, Melian was brought within thirty yards, and
+with the sight, his heart seemed to stand still within him.  The
+beautiful face, though calm, had a set, troubled look, even a frightened
+look, he told himself.  But her splendid pluck was evidently standing
+her in good stead.  Then he turned the glasses upon her uncle.  Mervyn's
+face was impassive, and betrayed no emotion whatever.  And then, like a
+flash, there ran through his own mind the whole gist of his talk with
+Coates on the night of their arrival in the new camp--his prediction
+that at some time or other Mervyn would return to this strange, dim,
+mysterious land, and the other's reply--ready reply at that--that if he
+were wise he would not.  And now here he was--manifestly a prisoner,
+and, for what purpose?  And with him, Melian.
+
+If ever Helston Varne had run against difficulty in his life--and that
+he had run against and surmounted many, we have already said--he
+realised that he was running against the greatest--here and now.  He
+knew enough of this wild Northern border, with its labyrinthine
+impenetrable chasms and fastnesses, and the fierce fanatical treachery
+of its indomitable tribesmen, to recognise that sheer forcible rescue
+was clean out of the question.  If for some special reason like that
+hinted at by Coates, they had managed to get Mervyn into their power, it
+was with a long brooded upon, and settled purpose, one which involved no
+mere matter of ransom.  And Melian?  Here one ray of hope did dawn.  She
+could have had no part in, or knowledge of, her uncle's dealings with
+their inner and mysterious affairs, and as strict Mahomedans, they would
+not offer active insult to a woman.  Here the question of ransom might
+come in, and if it did, he himself would find it--find it promptly and
+cheerfully.
+
+In a whirl of mingled feelings the ordinarily cool-headed, hard nerved
+man watched the band as it receded now, for it had already passed their
+point of outlook, and would disappear directly round the upper bend of
+the valley.  Then he turned to Hussein Khan.
+
+"What does this mean?"
+
+Again the other shrugged a shoulder.
+
+"Who may say, _Hazur_?  The Gularzai are ever restless, and they love
+money as--Ya Allah, who does not!  If they have _persuaded_, yonder
+_Hazur_, and the Miss Sahib, to go with them, it is because they are
+worth many rupees."
+
+Helston looked fixedly at him, even meaningly.
+
+"And that is all their motive--all?" he added, with emphasised meaning.
+
+But the man's fine face was mask-like in its lack of response.  If its
+owner knew--suspected--any other--well, he was an Oriental.
+
+"Allah-din Khan too, loves money," he answered.  "We are alone _Hazur_,
+so--there are some who would be alive to-day had they been able to give
+him what he asked."
+
+An immense relief would have swept across Helston's mind had the
+shikari's answer carried conviction.  For it would have cut the knot of
+the difficulty on the spot.  He knew that Mervyn was a poor man, and
+realised with intense satisfaction then that he himself was not.
+Whatever this freebooting chieftain might ask to set his captives free
+should be paid.  It would be a mere matter for negotiation.  But,
+unfortunately, in the light of his talk with Coates, the answer did not
+carry conviction--not entirely, though he tried to buoy himself up with
+the hope that it did.
+
+"Where is Allah-din Khan's village?" he said.
+
+"His village?  It is more like a fort, _Hazur_.  It is away among the
+mountains, nearly two days journey from here.  They are heading straight
+for it now."
+
+Helston's heart sank.  A fort--a hill fort!  Why, it would require an
+expedition to reduce such, and meanwhile, what would become of the
+captives?  The only solution he saw was that of ransom, and that was,
+under the circumstances, by no means a reassuring one.
+
+"Can you guide me to it, Hussein Khan?"
+
+The man looked strangely troubled.
+
+"I can do so," he said, after a pause.  "But it is putting the head
+between the tiger's jaws, for then will not Allah-din Khan demand the
+price of three instead of the price of two?  And the price he will name
+will not be small, _Hazur_."
+
+The matter of price would have been nothing.  But more and more did
+Helston conjecture a deeper motive to underly.  One redeeming side of
+it, however, was that he did not think they would be in any immediate
+danger, and it would be hard if he could not find some way out of the
+_impasse_.
+
+"This needs some planning out, Hussein Khan.  Meanwhile we will return
+to the camp."
+
+"_Ha, Hazur_."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Any luck?" asked Varne Coates, coming out of the tent to meet him.  He
+had remained at home, not feeling very fit.  Then, as if the negative
+shake of the head constituted a matter of no importance, he went on
+eagerly: "You certainly have the gift of prophecy, Helston, or you must
+be the devil himself.  Remember, when we were talking about Mervyn the
+other night, you predicted he'd be turning up here again?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, he has.  I've just got a `chit' from him saying he'll be here
+with us this evening, and he's bringing his niece.  They left Mazaran
+three days ago on purpose to join us.  We'll have a rare old _bukh_,
+over old times, but,"--with a shake of the head--"you remember what I
+was saying--that he'd be a damn fool if he did come out here again.
+Well, I only hope I was wrong."
+
+"I wish you were, but I'm afraid you're not.  Come into the tent here,
+and see that no one's about who can understand us."
+
+Varne Coates stared at his kinsman.  The concerned gravity in the
+latter's tone affected him, taken in conjunction with his superhuman
+gift of finding out everything.  He led the way into the tent in
+silence.
+
+And then Helston put him into possession of the morning's discovery.  At
+the conclusion of the narrative Coates shook a very doleful head indeed.
+
+"They weren't with Allah-din Khan's crowd of their own free will," he
+declared.  "Did Mervyn show any signs of having been in a scrap?"
+
+"No.  My glasses are extra powerful.  He looked--normal.  Well?  What do
+you think of it--of the chances?"
+
+"Chances?  I think the chances for Mervyn are worth just that,"--with a
+snap of the fingers.  "For the girl, it's just possible that this
+_budmash_ may give her up, at the price of lakhs of rupees, but who the
+devil's going to pay it?"
+
+"The Government?"
+
+"No fear, Government may send an expedition, but that won't help
+anybody, but it isn't going to pay up."
+
+"Then I am."
+
+"You are?" with a stare of amazement.
+
+"Certainly.  Only too glad to get her back safe at any price, even if it
+costs me every damn shilling I've got in the world."
+
+Varne Coates looked at his kinsman and whistled.
+
+"So that's how the cat jumps, is it?"
+
+"That's how."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+MERVYN'S DILEMMA.
+
+We must glance back.
+
+Mervyn's camp was pitched not very far from the mouth of the Duran
+Tangi; that is, not very far from the scene of the sniping episode of a
+week or two previously, of which, of course, he was in ignorance, but
+far enough from the great overhanging wall of terraced cliff, to be
+beyond the possibility of a repetition of the same.  He had been warned
+at Mazaran that the country was extra restless just then, and that
+moving about in it, in the happy-go-lucky way he proposed, was
+positively unsafe; but with his usual gustiness, he pooh-poohed every
+suggestion of the kind.  No one was good enough to teach _him_ his
+India, he declared.  If it suited the military element to get up and
+foment a chronic scare, well that wasn't going to interfere with him.
+It was of no use representing to him that this wasn't India precisely,
+but the Northern border--whose inhabitants were a fierce, predatory set
+of fanatics caring for no show of authority, and that even now these
+were in a state of unrest--well, he knew them too.  When he heard that
+his old friend Varne Coates--and especially the latter's relative, and
+his friend, were on a shikar expedition two or three days out, that was
+sufficient.  He only spent long enough at Mazaran to collect camp
+necessaries and hire servants, and at once set out to join them.
+
+He had even demurred to the escort of four Levy sowars, which was
+pressed upon him.  These damned Catch-em-alive-ohs, he declared, were of
+no--ditto--use.  They couldn't hit a haystack if it came to shooting,
+and even then they'd either clear or make common cause with the enemy,
+to whom, tribally, they as likely as not belonged.  So--here he was.
+
+They had made a very early start from their last camp, and the morning
+was yet young.  They had not long finished breakfast, and were seated in
+camp chairs under the shade of a canvas awning.
+
+"Oh, this is perfectly glorious," Melian was saying, her eyes seeming to
+feed upon the sunlit wildness of the surroundings.  "What a contrast to
+dear old Heath Hover, too.  Look at that splendid mountain face, all
+terraced, as it were, with great cliffs; and even the openness of it all
+has a marvellous charm."
+
+Her uncle puffed meditatively at his cheroot, then looked at her, and in
+the result felt not unsatisfied.  She had taken, with characteristic
+readiness, to this strange wild country and its life--and every phase of
+it afforded her a fresh delight.  And its people, too, of every shade
+and type, but that which attracted her most, was the tall, turbaned,
+often scowling, mountaineer, with his primitive _jezail_ and never
+absent and wicked looking tulwar--a very Ishmaelite in deed and in
+appearance.
+
+They had come up the _tangi_ in the early morning and she had been
+entranced with the vastness of the huge narrow chasm, the first of its
+kind she had ever seen.  And now, as Mervyn contemplated the eager
+animated face, tinged with the golden glow of an open air life, the blue
+eyes clear and large in contrast, he found himself thinking satirically
+that it was small wonder if Mazaran had sought to throw stumbling blocks
+in the way of their leaving it.  And then as though the mention of Heath
+Hover evoked a recollection she suddenly said:
+
+"I do hope old Joe and Judy will take real care of our little black
+poogie, and not let it out at night to get shot, or get into a trap in
+the coverts--dear little pooge-pooge?"
+
+"Oh, I'm sure they will.  But--we couldn't have done with it here, could
+we?"
+
+"No, but I would like to have it all the same.  Why, what's this?"
+
+A whirl of dust was coming down the road, and as it drew nearer, they
+could make out a band of horsemen, clad in the loose white garments of
+the mountain tribes.  Through it, too, as the gleam of weapons.
+
+"Oh, it's some of these picturesque people, and they are so
+fascinating," cried the girl.  "It'll be quite a sight to see them ride
+past."
+
+The road ran about a hundred yards below the site of the camp.  For the
+first time some qualm of misgiving came into Mervyn's self-sufficient
+mind, and he found himself actually hoping that they really would ride
+past.  They looked a formidable gang enough, some two score strong, and
+armed to the teeth.  It was not lessened as he saw that they were not on
+the road at all, and were heading straight for the camp.
+
+Came another sight, which caused his face to pale and stiffen strangely.
+
+"Melian, go inside the tent, and stay there till I tell you to come
+out," he said sharply.
+
+"Why?  Mayn't I see?"
+
+"Do as I say--at once," he repeated, with a stamp of the foot.  "They
+may be a bit rough, but--I'll settle them."
+
+She obeyed, greatly wondering.  "Mayn't I see?" she had said.  Good!
+Then she had not seen--what he had, and he felt thankful.
+
+Out on the plain two of his camp natives were herding the camels.  He
+had seen several of the horsemen dart out upon these from the main body,
+and cut them down with their keen edged tulwars without giving them time
+so much as to utter a shriek.  At that moment John Seward Mervyn
+realised that if ever he had been in a tight place in his life he was in
+one now, and if he did not, when too late, curse his own foolhardiness
+for bringing him into it, why it was only because he had not time.
+
+The whole band rode down like a whirlwind upon the camp.  The bearer and
+khitmutghar, and the cook, Punjabi natives, scared out of their lives,
+had crept into one of the tents and crouched trembling.  The Levy sowars
+alone showed fight, and pointed their rifles, but it was plain they
+would have welcomed any chance offered to surrender.
+
+"Melian, don't move outside, do you hear," said her uncle over his
+shoulder.  He had risen, and stood confronting the wild array.  These
+had now reined up, and were facing him, in a crescent formation.
+
+"Salaam!" he said.  "This is a strange welcome to a stranger in a
+strange land, brothers."
+
+A grunt broke from the fierce shaggy faces; and the gleaming, hostile
+eyes seemed to take on a further deepening of hate and greed.
+
+"This is the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan," said one, designating the man on
+his right.
+
+"That is good to hear," answered Mervyn, speaking in the Pushtu,
+"Salaam, Sirdar Allah-din Khan.  I repeat this is a strange way of
+paying a friendly visit."
+
+"A friendly visit?" repeated the chief, in deep tones.  "But what if
+this is not a friendly visit?"
+
+The fierce eyes of the fanatical predatory Asiatic, and the hard,
+determined blue gleam in those of the European met, and there was no
+yielding in the glance of either.
+
+"In that case," replied the latter, "I invite the Sirdar to withdraw.
+It is not safe to stay--for him, for as the life of the Sirdar Allah-din
+Khan must be worth the lives of all his followers put together, it is
+not good policy to throw away so valuable a life."
+
+The tone was perfectly even, in itself containing no threat.  Mervyn was
+at his best now, cool, desperate, therefore deadly dangerous.  At his
+words a gasp of amazement escaped from the other side.  The first
+thought was of a trap.  Were there soldiers concealed in the tent, with
+rifles trained upon them through the canvas?  And meanwhile Mervyn stood
+confronting them, calmly; one hand, however, always behind him.
+
+"The life of so important a chief as the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must be
+of great value," he went on in the same unconcerned tone.  "And--he has
+but one."
+
+"And thou hast two, Feringhi," answered the chief, darkly.  "Two, and
+that means two deaths instead of one, lingering and painful deaths at
+that.  One of thy `lives' is behind in the tent.  Good!  I may fall or I
+may not, but I swear on the tomb of the Prophet that if thou so much as
+drawest the weapon now held behind thee, thou and thy daughter,"--this
+was a figure of speech--"shall be burnt alive.  She first."
+
+Mervyn felt desperate.  He tried not to pale as he gazed at the speaker.
+But his hand did not move from behind him.  In that fierce, hard, set
+countenance, in the very words of the oath uttered, he knew there would
+be no going back from that sentence.  He might shoot the chief dead, but
+no power on earth would turn the whirlwind rush of his followers.  And
+they would be as good as their leader's word, as to that he entertained
+no doubt whatever.  Melian--writhing in a death of fiery torment--the
+bare idea was as a pictured glimpse into hell itself.  A great roll of
+time swept over his mind in that moment or two, as he stood, confronting
+the man in whose power he was.
+
+"She first," this barbarian had said.  There was a full refinement of
+diabolical cruelty in the words.  God! the thing was unthinkable!
+
+"I draw no weapon," he answered.  "What does the Sirdar Allah-din Khan
+require.  Money?"
+
+"Thyself."
+
+The answer was curt, deep toned, uncompromising.
+
+"Myself?"
+
+"Nothing else."
+
+"And what of my `daughter'--who however is not my daughter, but my
+sister's daughter?" went on Mervyn, who was puzzling hard over what took
+on more and more the look of a very hopeless and dreadful situation.
+"As believers you dare not harm a woman, the holy Koran itself forbids
+it.  But how shall she find her way back to her people alone, she who
+has never before been in this land?"
+
+"We want nothing of her," said the chief.  "She may go in peace.  Two of
+my people here shall escort her safely to within view of the camp of
+yonder Feringhi," with a nod over his shoulder in the direction of Varne
+Coates' camp.  "But for thyself thou must go with us."
+
+To say that Mervyn felt as if more than half the cloud had lifted would
+be to put it mildly.  The awful deadly weight that had been crushing
+him, the consciousness to wit, that by his own foolhardy obstinacy, he
+had brought Melian into ghastly peril--was that which afflicted him
+most.  He himself and his own potential fate was a matter of utterly
+secondary importance--and, here was a way out.
+
+But could he trust the chief's promises?  He knew that in this instance
+he could.  So he made answer, and that very earnestly.
+
+"You will keep faith with me, Sirdar Sahib?  My sister's child shall be
+escorted to yonder camp by two of your people, and delivered there safe
+and unharmed either by word or deed, on condition that I go with you
+now?  Do you swear that solemnly on the holy Koran and the tomb of the
+Prophet?"
+
+"I swear it," answered Allah-din Khan, "on the holy Koran, by the tomb
+of the Prophet, and on the holy Kaba."  And he raised his sword hilt to
+the level of his forehead.  Mervyn knew that the oath would be kept.
+
+"I would fain bid farewell to the child, and prepare her for the
+journey," he said.  "I, too, make oath, that nothing will be done inside
+the tent but that."
+
+It seemed strange, but to this the chief made no objection, nor did he
+require that one of his followers should be present.  He merely bent his
+head in assent.
+
+"Well, what has happened?  You have been talking long enough, dear,"
+said the girl, as he entered the tent.
+
+"Melian darling, you will have to go on to Coates' camp a little ahead
+of me.  The fact is--I must go with these people for a bit--but I'll
+rejoin you soon.  The chief is going to tell off two of his men as an
+escort for you, and you will be quite safe--quite safe.  Tell Coates
+I'll join him later."
+
+He tried to speak jauntily--to force a smile.  But Melian was not to be
+taken in--not for a moment.  She shook her head.
+
+"I am not going to Mr Coates' camp," she said, "at least, not without
+you.  If you have got to go with these people I go too."
+
+Mervyn had not reckoned upon this.  He tried to reason with her,
+pointing out that a forced march with a gang of wild tribesmen and a
+sojourn in their more or less uncomfortable villages, was no fit
+experience for her.  Of any clement of peril he purposely said nothing,
+knowing full well that to do so would be simply to rivet her opposition
+the closer.  But he might as well have argued with the tent walls, or
+have tried to turn the Gularzai chieftain from his fixed purpose.
+
+"Now be reasonable, my little one," he concluded.  "Say good-bye to me
+here, and I'll see you started off all comfortably."
+
+But Melian set her lips, and those very pretty lips of hers could set
+very firmly indeed on occasion.
+
+"I shall do no such thing," she answered.  "I'm going with you.  We came
+here together, and I'm not going to leave you."
+
+She was clinging to him now, firmly, and kissing him.
+
+"You won't go to Coates' then?" he said helplessly.
+
+"No.  I'm going with you.  So now, let's go out and tell them so."
+
+The chief might have been excused if he had grown impatient, but he had
+not.  With true Oriental impassiveness he and his wild followers sat
+their horses, waiting--incidentally the camp servants crouching in their
+tent, went through the bitterness of death many times over during that
+period of waiting.  Then Mervyn came out and announced that they would
+have to take two with them instead of one.  But Allah-din Khan received
+the statement without great demur; it may have been that he scented
+advantage to himself in this addition to his own programme.
+
+In not much longer space of time than it took them to bring in the two
+horses, and hurriedly put together a few necessaries, were they ready to
+start.  The syce, who was ordered out on the first errand, showed no
+great concern.  He was a Pathan and a believer, and stood in no fear of
+the scowling horsemen.  But the bearer, who had perforce been convened
+for purposes of the latter, had wilted and cowered before the lowering
+glances darted at him from under fierce shaggy brows, as a Hindu dog and
+an idolater.  But it did not suit their purpose to shed more blood on
+that occasion, else would he and the others have felt the tulwar's edge
+there and then.  The two already slain had been victims to a sudden,
+unthinking blood lust.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Again we must glance back.
+
+Since the last visit of Helston Varne to Heath Hover, and the boding
+manifestation that same evening, of the opening door, an unaccountable
+and evil influence seemed to pervade the place.  There was no gripping
+it, but it was there, and on Melian especially, it seemed to take a firm
+hold.  All her bright sunny spirits, her joyousness in life, seemed to
+leave her, and that with a suddenness and rapidity that was little short
+of alarming.  She grew pallid, and lost her appetite.  She grew nervous,
+too, and would start at any and every sound; and when night time came,
+and with it solitude, she shrank from it with a very horror of
+shrinking.  Nothing had happened, according to the tradition of that
+boding presage, but the fit grew upon her, and it affected Mervyn too,
+though differently.  At last he took her to task about it, and she owned
+up to the whole thing.
+
+"This'll never do, little one," he had said, looking at her with very
+grave concern.  "We must go away for a change."
+
+The relief which sprang into her face confirmed her former revelation.
+Still she made protest.
+
+"Why should I break up your peace and quiet, Uncle Seward?" trying to
+smile, but the smile was a wan one.  "You have given me a home, when I
+had none--such a happy home, too--but somehow now, I don't know what it
+is that has come over me.  I seem to be always frightened--of
+something--or nothing."
+
+Yes, he had noticed that, but had hoped it would pass.  But it had not.
+
+"Where shall we go then?  Where would you like?" he said.
+
+"Anywhere _you_ like, dear.  It's all the same to me."
+
+"H'm!  How should you like to go to--India?"
+
+"To--India?  Oh, Uncle Seward, I should just love it," and all the old
+animation returned, as if by magic.
+
+"Very well.  Pack up to-morrow and we'll start the day after," he had
+answered, with characteristic promptitude.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+And so--here they were.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+THE DIM, MYSTERIOUS EAST.
+
+The way in which the two accepted the situation was characteristic of
+both.  Mervyn took it apparently as all in the day's work, though he had
+reason to believe that his days were surely numbered.  He conversed
+equably with his captors--or escort, as though he were accompanying them
+of his own free will, to pay a visit to their village for instance, for
+any other pacific purpose.  Yet he knew that in coming to this country
+again he had deliberately--as Hussein Khan had put it--placed his head
+between the tiger's jaws.
+
+Even this, strange to say, did not perturb him, perhaps he had imbibed a
+large proportion of Oriental fatalism during his lifelong acquaintance
+with the strange peoples of the East.  If his time had come--it had, and
+there was no more to be said.  It had nearly come, he knew full well,
+when the cry through the winter midnight had led him to drag the
+perishing man forth from the icy death.  Now, if it really had come,
+why--"it was written;" and in that case that he had returned to this
+land at all, and of his own free will--was part of the scheme.  Thus he
+looked at it.
+
+But--what of Melian?  Had he not drawn her into peril?  No--for he did
+not believe they would harm her.  For himself, if what he suspected
+should prove true--why then his hours were certainly numbered.  Well,
+what then?  Until she had come to Heath Hover he had not been in love
+with life.  He was often, in fact, honestly and genuinely sick of it.
+The brightening which her coming had shed upon it could not be other
+than temporary.  In the due and ordinary course of things she was bound
+to leave him again sooner or later--and then, how could he return to the
+old solitude, the old depression of day in, night out?  There was
+nothing to look forward to, and precious little to look back upon.  So
+it mattered little enough now whatever happened to himself.  All of
+which of course, he did not impart to Melian.
+
+She for her part, seemed infected with his unconcern, and looked upon
+the whole affair as a decidedly interesting adventure.  It had its
+inconvenient side--for instance the commissariat department was to her
+civilised tastes, abominable, and sleeping out among the rocks was
+chilly of a night.  But she was allowed to come and go as she liked.  No
+watch was set upon her, for in the first place she had volunteered to go
+with them rather than separate from her relative, and in the next where
+would she be in the midst of this craggy, and, to her, entirely unknown
+wilderness, even if she did change her mind, and take it into her head
+to try and escape.  At night they would make her up a couch of mats in
+some cleft or hollow among the rocks and shelter off the entrance, and
+she would declare laughingly to her uncle that it was only an experience
+of camping out, after all.
+
+Yet there were times when her efforts at keeping up her spirits would
+sorely fail her.  Mervyn himself could not consistently find comfort in
+cold fatalism, and she would read in the gloom of his knitted brows that
+he was by no means so easy in his mind as he would have had her believe.
+And as they journeyed on, through the awful wildness of this savage,
+rock built region; threading gloomy gorges where the very light of the
+sun would not penetrate, or traversing a drear waste of desert where the
+friable soil rose and gyrated in "dust devils" and the sun blazed down
+as from the reflection of an opened furnace; wending the while, whither
+they knew not--her spirits began to droop.  In short the situation was
+getting upon her nerves--and that badly.
+
+The shaggy, turbaned horsemen, whom at first she had found fascinating
+in their picturesqueness, began to appear in her eyes more and more the
+predatory, merciless beings they really were.  The wild savagery of the
+surroundings--which at first she had pronounced absolutely faultless in
+their fantastic chaos of rock and crag and chasm, now took on a
+Dantesque and hope-chilling aspect.  Where would it all end?
+
+Either Hussein Khan's estimate of the distance to be travelled to arrive
+at the Gularzai chieftain's stronghold had been very much under-rated,
+or they were bound for some other destination, for two nights had
+passed, and they seemed no nearer to any fixed ending of their
+journeyings.  And then when her spirits had reached their lowest ebb,
+came a thought to Melian's mind like the breaking of sunlight through a
+thick mist.
+
+Helston Varne was at Coates' camp, which had been their objective when
+their plans had been thus roughly and suddenly deflected.  She would
+hardly own to herself how greatly she had been looking forward to
+meeting him again, and now it seemed to her that he, of all human
+agencies, would be the one to come to their aid and bring matters right.
+How on earth he was going to do it she had not the ghost of an idea,
+but that he would contrive to do it somehow, she felt assured--almost.
+For the very name of Helston Varne seemed to her now as before, a tower
+of refuge.  And something of this she imparted to her uncle.
+
+But he shook a gloomy head.  A network was around him--around them
+both--which even Helston Varne's acumen and infinite resource would be
+powerless to rend asunder.  This he knew, but she did not, and--he could
+not tell her.
+
+He had been very careful in his conversations with her, and had enjoined
+upon her like caution.  It was highly probable, but still not absolutely
+safe to assume, that no one amid their captors understood English.  She
+suggested French, but then Mervyn's education, though excellent for
+purposes of passing through a crammer's hands in his salad days,
+comprised no working knowledge of that courtly and useful tongue, so
+that fell through, and unless now and again, and then by dark hints,
+they were compelled to avoid any reference to the motive of their
+capture, and the ultimate chances of its satisfactory termination.  And
+then it befell that the merest chance--a piece of overheard
+conversation--sufficed to throw him into the last stage of gloomy,
+hopeless despair.
+
+It was during one of their noontide halts.  The routine of prayer and
+prostration--which Melian had at first found so picturesque, even
+admirable, but now had wearied of--was over, and the men were scattered
+about in twos or threes, looking after the horses and other things.  Two
+of them were chatting together in a drowsy undertone, and Mervyn,
+unnoticed by them, was just within earshot, and the substance of what
+they were saying was this.  He himself must die, his time had come.
+That night they would reach the place--_the place_.  Well, this as a
+personal consideration troubled him not much, he had only expected it.
+But the woman with the sun-tinged hair, they went on to say, she, unless
+the _Sirkar_ at Mazaran paid the lakh of rupees which would be asked for
+her restoration--or made any move against them because of what had been
+done--why there were those over the Persian border who would give nearly
+if not quite as much for such an addition to their _harim_.
+
+In frozen horror he took in this, but it was essential to show no sign
+that he had heard.  Would such a sum be paid, and if it were, would not
+official delay and official bungling be such as to render even
+compliance of none effect?  Moreover, could the authorities responsible
+for the peace of the border allow so flagrant an act of dacoity to pass
+without retaliative measures?  In either case--Good Heavens!  He knew
+enough about the conditions of a vast tract of hardly penetrated
+country, and its inscrutable inhabitants, to realise that once Melian
+disappeared entirely she would be as completely swallowed up, as though
+the whole Indian army, and the official mechanism, from the Viceroy
+downwards, were not in existence.  And this was the fate to which his
+own foolhardiness had consigned her.  And she was as much to him as ever
+child of his own could have been!
+
+He knew the two speakers as near kinsmen of Allah-din Khan, and that as
+such that they were not talking at random.  He himself was to die that
+night, that was settled.  That was nothing.  "It was written."  But how
+to save Melian from the unutterable ghastliness of the fate mapped out
+for her?  That was everything.  No amount of fatalism would come to his
+aid there.  In the hot swelter of noontide--for with all the keen chill
+of the nights on these high lands, the sun at noonday threw off from the
+rocks and arid ground in waves of glowing heat--his brain seemed to
+bubble.  One weltering thought seethed through it--that of taking her
+life and his own at the same time, but as against this he remembered
+that he was unarmed.  They had insisted upon his giving up everything in
+the shape of a weapon at the time of his surrender.  Then again, she had
+the one chance in her favour, what right had he to deprive her of it?
+Well, there remained still some hours--_some hours only_--which he had
+left to him, and yet his reason told him that they could bring nothing.
+Of his own death, or even the manner of it, he did not think--so wrapped
+up was he in the desperation of extremity as the situation affected her.
+
+"Why, Uncle Seward, buck up.  You are looking dreadfully down," she
+remarked, as they resumed their journey.  "And you were the one who was
+always trying to hearten me."
+
+"Yes darling, I was, but--perhaps I am not quite the thing.  Got a touch
+of the sun, or something.  But I'll be all right when it gets cooler.  A
+tough old campaigner like me is never affected that way for long."
+
+He noticed that she herself was far from cheerful, and that her spirits
+were forced.  But--great God! if she only knew what he had learned.  In
+sheer desperation he ranged his horse alongside that of Allah-din Khan,
+and began to talk, haply in hope that the other might let fall some hint
+which should give him an idea.  It even seemed to him that he himself
+was talking wildly and at random, for he surprised the chief looking at
+him more than once in a restrained and curious manner.  Yet they had
+often talked together during their enforced march.
+
+"I should not have consented to the Miss Sahib accompanying me," he
+ventured.  "I fear it has been too much for her.  Could you not return
+her to her people, brother?  It would be of great advantage to all
+concerned?"
+
+He made the remark in sheer desperation, and emphasising the last words.
+But nothing came of it.
+
+"We have come far," replied Allah-din Khan, tranquilly, "but in time she
+will return.  The teachings of the Prophet enjoin patience, but women--
+Feringhi women especially--have none of it.  Let this one learn to
+acquire it."
+
+This was uncompromising, but Mervyn thought to see a loophole.
+
+"In time she will return," he repeated.  "That is the word of a Sirdar
+of the Gularzai?"
+
+To this the chief made no reply.  He was looking straight in front of
+him as he rode, and his dark, clear-cut face was as impassive as a mask.
+He might, indeed, not have heard for all the sign he gave.
+
+In the light of what he had overheard it was significant to Mervyn that
+a glance at the sun showed that they were travelling due west.  What
+curious dash of wild hope was it that caused him to recall that this had
+brought them a great deal nearer to Mazaran than they were when at the
+point of their start?  And yet, even if chance offered, there were
+ranges of craggy, tooth-like crests between them and the garrison
+station, and he himself was totally unacquainted with this part of the
+country.  But what chance could offer?  None.  Absolutely none.
+
+An hour before sundown they halted at a small, squalid looking village--
+and then the regulation performances of prayer were gone through.  He
+did notice that several strangers had joined with Allah-din Khan's band
+in this--presumably people from the squalid, mud-walled village.  That
+one of them was a man of extra fine stature and presence, he also
+noticed, but barely so.  For instance he overlooked the fact that this
+one was bowing down, and repeating the prescribed words with extra
+fervour, and a fanatical ecstasy in his dark eyes and swarthy
+countenance, and that the others were stealing at him glances of furtive
+veneration.
+
+As they resumed their march he ranged his horse alongside that of
+Melian.  No restriction was put upon such movements as this.  The band
+was riding anyhow and in open order now--straggling order would be the
+better term for it, for some were quite far behind.  In the first place
+their captives were mounted on inferior steeds, in the next the Gularzai
+were perfectly well aware that in such country as they now were in, any
+attempt at escape would meet with not the ghost of a chance.
+
+"My child, I have brought you into a dreadful corner," he said, and the
+dead note of hopelessness in his tone struck a chill into his hearer.
+"I ought never to have consented to your accompanying me, but now it's
+too late.  Listen.  If anything should happen to me, you will still be
+set free on a ransom.  The Government will pay it, I have very little in
+the world, but such as it is I have left it to you--and now but for me
+being such a fool as to bring you here we might have gone on in our old
+quiet, happy life; not necessarily at Heath Hover.  Well, what I wanted
+to say, and I must say it quickly, is this, If anything should happen to
+me, ask to be taken to the Nawab Shere Dil Khan.  He is the head chief
+of the Gularzai, and this one is under him.  I'll write the words down
+for you in Hindustani, and you can learn them by heart--and keep on
+asking--keep on asking."  He felt in his pocket, and even wrote in his
+pocket, on an envelope he found there.  "And don't show any fear, keep
+on steadfastly requiring the Nawab Shere Dil Khan--have you got the
+name, well, I've put it down here, only it's not very distinct.  Well
+now, take the bit of paper--That was well done.  And--there's another
+thing."
+
+Melian looked at the speaker and her eyes filled.  Her nerves had begun
+to go, and she was feeling utterly helpless and overwrought.  Now this
+strong foreboding of danger aggravated this.
+
+"Darling Uncle Seward, what should be going to happen to you?" she
+urged.  "There now, you have been trying to keep me up; now I must try
+and keep you up.  Surely they won't harm you--us--if they expect to be
+paid for letting us go?"
+
+"Yes.  That's right, little one.  They won't harm--us," he answered.
+"Still, it's best to be on the safe side.  Once you get to the Nawab
+you're safe.  He's a straight and square man, but unfortunately, these
+sub-tribal chiefs are virtually almost independent of the head, or it's
+certain we should not be here."
+
+"I'll remember," she answered.  "But,"--as though a sudden and
+illuminating idea had struck her.  "Why don't _you_ appeal to him--now,
+before we go any further.  Why leave it to what--isn't going to happen--
+and me?"
+
+Here was a question which it was impossible for him to answer, though to
+all appearances, nothing could have been more pertinent.  He could not
+tell her that in his case the head sirdar of the Gularzai would be every
+whit as merciless as would Allah-din Khan and his followers.  But her
+case was different.  And that ghastly plan which he had overheard had
+resolved him to an even more hazardous course on her behalf--hazardous
+because one of sheer sink or swim.
+
+"`Why?'" he repeated.  "`Why?'  Always a woman's query--Why?"  And he
+looked at her with a very loving but very sad smile.  "I can only tell
+you this, child, that you must leave that part of it to me, and do
+exactly as I tell you I _know_--and you don't.  That must be sufficient.
+This is the dim, mysterious East, remember, and I've spent the best
+years of my life in it."
+
+The sun was drooping now to the craggy, serrated ridge beyond the
+valley, flaming in red gold upon the cliffs beneath which they were
+riding.  The figures of the wild, turbaned horsemen were picked out in
+the clear glow--the strange, fierce East indeed.  Melian thought it was
+a picture that would remain stamped in her memory until her dying day.
+There were signs too, that the said figures showed an inclination to
+abandon their straggling order and to close up.  Mervyn saw this--and at
+the same time came the thought that this was the last sun whose setting
+he would ever see.
+
+"Quick, now, Melian," he said.  "Take this, but carefully.  Watch your
+chance.  No one must see.  When you have it, hide it upon you.  Don't
+even look at it again.  If you do, it must be at the very last
+extremity.  You are more than ordinarily quick witted, and will be able
+to follow.  If anything happens to me--no, don't interrupt--and after a
+reasonable time has gone, say a month, and you are not restored, and
+especially if Allah-din Khan should attempt to pass you on to
+strangers--then produce it.  Do you follow?"
+
+"Yes--but--what--where--is _it_?" said the girl, her wide open, serious
+eyes upon his face.
+
+"Take my pouch and pipe, and fill it, as they have often seen you do,"
+and he handed it to her.  Wondering, she obeyed.  Then as he reached
+forth his hand to take it, he slipped something into hers.  One look at
+this, and she almost let it fall, but refrained, just in time.
+
+For what she held in her hand was a tiny facsimile of the strange,
+star-shaped disc, which she had picked up on the sluice path at Heath
+Hover that lovely cloudless June morning, and the sight of which, in her
+grasp, had struck her uncle with such a terror of trepidation.
+
+And he knew that she was possessed of that which upon production would
+entail upon her two alternatives--restoration, to liberty or death--the
+latter, swift, painless, unconscious.  But the other ghastly fate, to
+which he had overheard allusion made, could now never be hers.
+
+"Only in the very last extremity," he reminded her, in an earnest
+undertone, for the band was now closing up around them.  And she bent
+her head in grave, silent comprehension, and assent.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+THE VAULT OF DOOM.
+
+The red fires shot up against shining rock reflection, throwing out
+exaggerations or silhouettes of the shaggy figures moving about.  Wild,
+fantastic, as the surrounding crags were, thus thrown out into fitful
+light, yet the place was an ideal one for a snug and sheltered camp,
+where the keen mountain air struck chill at night, for it was sheltered
+on three sides by rock and cliff, while the fourth gave out on a steep
+drop into the valley beneath.  To one, at any rate, the topographical
+situation did not fail in significance.  Not by sheer accident, not for
+mere purposes of shelter had the situation been chosen.
+
+In hanging clusters the stars shone brightly in the clear sky, but there
+was no moon.  The two Europeans, seated in their own camp a little
+apart, had finished their evening meal--Mervyn incidentally, had been
+allowed to go out, under escort, and shoot a few _chikor_ [the large
+red-legged hill partridge], early that morning, so they had fared better
+than heretofore.  Now he had lighted a pipe, and was striving to conjure
+up all the stoicism of the dim mysterious East to his aid, the while
+keeping up the conversation with Melian, and doing so in such wise as to
+convey no apprehension to her mind.  And the keeping up of ordinary
+conversation within an hour or so of one's own death is not an easy
+undertaking; but then, John Seward Mervyn was not quite an ordinary man.
+
+A few months ago, he would not greatly have concerned himself over this
+situation.  But within that time, life had changed and brightened for
+him.  It was more valuable up to date than it had been then.  He turned
+the talk on to Heath Hover and their time together there, and for a
+little, the girl forgot their precarious and now depressing situation
+and surroundings, and was responsive, brightening up with this and that
+homely touch.
+
+"Why, the heather must be flaming out in perfectly gorgeous crimson up
+above the Plane woods," she said, "and we are not getting the benefit of
+it this time.  And that bit, down below Chiltingford, where we took
+Violet the day before she left--that must be too ripping for anything.
+And the jolly old battered mill, standing out on the open--I wish we
+were there again, don't you, dear?  Say you do."
+
+The eager, retrospective tone had lapsed into seriousness.  There was no
+difficulty in replying as she wanted, and that with perfect truth and
+candour.  Mervyn, looking back on those fair scenes, spent with this
+child; marking and treasuring all her golden joyousness and appreciation
+of every sound and sight around her; thought that for a repetition of
+just that time alone he would have faced the fate in front of him a
+hundred times over.  It was little enough of such sweet wholesome
+happiness he had known in the course of a hard, rugged, bizarre life,
+and that time about comprised it all.
+
+Two wolves howled at responsive intervals away down in the valley
+beneath, and the red glow of the camp fires played upon the bronzed,
+hook-nosed faces, and fierce eyes, of the wild marauders of the desert,
+squatted around, smoking their hookahs, and conversing in a deep
+rumbling undertone.  The owls would be softly hooting in the woods which
+dipped their edges into Plane Pond at this moment, and the bell-like
+plash of rising fish ring out on its starlit surface.  Contrast indeed!
+Here in this savage wilderness death was to be his at any hour, at any
+moment.  And now and thus, for the first time in his life, death seemed
+hard to face.
+
+"You have--what I gave you--safe, child?" he broke in, as though moved
+by a sudden impulse.  "Recollect, it is only to be produced in the very
+last extremity, if the appeal to Shere Dil Khan should fail."
+
+"Don't," she answered, startled by the solemnly spoken irrelevance of
+the remark, and thrusting a hand into his.  "You must really shake off
+these dismal forebodings, dear--and yet, how can I undertake to lecture
+you--_you_--on things that this weird country may hold out?"
+
+And then, as if to give point to her words, a tall figure seemed to grow
+out of the earth beside them.  A murmured sentence or two, and as in
+response to it he rose.
+
+"Sit still, darling, and wait for me," he said.  "I have to go and talk
+with some of them, and it will be wearisome--especially as it interrupts
+our talk about good old times."  He rested one hand lovingly upon the
+gold-crowned head, and then passed out with the man who had come to
+summon him.  He would not even take a real, long farewell of her, if
+only that it might prove the reverse of advantageous to her, for he must
+still keep up the pretence of ignorance, and yet it was the last time he
+should behold her in this world, and he had but a shadowy belief in any
+other.  For John Seward Mervyn knew as well as did the man he was
+accompanying that he was going to his doom.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+It was a strange place, that in which he found himself but two or three
+minutes later--a cavernous hall, yet walled around by solid rock, and of
+some vastness.  And yet, it seemed somehow as though it were not
+entirely the work of Nature, even here, where Nature ran riot in the
+production of wild freaks of her own masonry.  It bore a look as though
+ages and ages of gradual working had wrought it to such a pitch of
+symmetry.  In the centre a fire burned, the smoke escaping upwards
+somehow and somewhere, for the atmosphere of the place was quite clear
+of it.
+
+Seated about this were some half dozen figures.  Only one did Mervyn
+recognise as that of Allah-din Khan.  The others all looked strangers to
+him.  Stay.  Only one?  No, there was another; for in the one seated on
+the right of the chief Mervyn recognised the tall, somewhat remarkable
+looking man who had joined the rest at prayer.  This one sat eyeing him,
+an embodiment of Eastern stateliness, in snowy flowing garments, the
+folds of his turban arranged round the conical _kulla_ which just peeped
+above it, with an almost mathematical nicety.  Mervyn took note of
+something else.  Behind him, two tall, ferocious looking Gularzai had
+drawn up, standing so as to bar effectually the way by which he had been
+ushered in.  So this was to be his death chamber, he thought?  Well, the
+sooner it was over the better.
+
+"Salaam, brothers," he began, but only by way of saying something.
+
+"It is not `salaam,'" ["salaam"--Peace] answered the distinguished
+looking stranger, speaking in a very deep chested tone.  "You joined the
+Brethren of the Night whose sign is the Five Pointed Star--were made
+blood-brother with them, and--were false to them."
+
+"Therein is not truth," answered Mervyn, who had expected this as an
+opening of the proceedings.
+
+"Not truth?" went on the speaker.  "In thine English home the Sign was
+delivered to thee; in thine English home--the long house with the
+cornering wings which shelter the centre, and which stands beneath the
+broad end of the water."
+
+But that Mervyn had learned to be astonished at nothing, he might well
+have felt surprised.  Here was an exact description of Heath Hover, and
+yet the only man who had seen it, and who bore the terrible and
+mysterious Sign, had died within its walls, and the method of his death
+he alone in all England knew.  And now here in this far Eastern
+wilderness was another--were others--who knew.
+
+"The Sign was not delivered to me," he answered.
+
+"Not delivered?" repeated the other slowly, and fixing upon his face a
+glance that seemed to burn, so glowing was it with fell, vengeful
+intent.  "Not delivered?  It was delivered not once only, but twice."
+
+Now, indeed, the listener's self possession all but betrayed the shock
+this announcement could not but cause him.  How well he recalled that
+lovely summer morning when he had looked out to behold the two girls
+coming down the sluice path and Melian carrying the deadly shining thing
+in her white, unsuspecting fingers--and his own frost of horror at the
+sight.  So all that time he had been shadowed, his every movement keenly
+watched from the recesses of those hanging woods--not as he had thought
+by honest English Nashby and his random, all-at-sea suspicions, but by
+this deadly Brotherhood, whose ranks, in an ill-starred moment, and
+moved chiefly by curiosity, he had joined.  Yet how on earth could their
+emissary or emissaries have hung about the Plane woods all that time
+undetected by keepers, or unseen and uncommented on by the surrounding
+rustic population?  Of a truth the problem was a record one for
+stiffness of solution.  But he answered:
+
+"It was not delivered once, nor yet twice.  It was not delivered at
+all."
+
+The fierce, copper-hued, shaggy faces, the gleaming eyes reflected in
+the firelight, were bent still more threateningly upon the speaker.  The
+latter, in sheer hopeless desperation, was probing behind his very brain
+to try and make out a case for himself, and at the same time realising
+its utter hopelessness; His remorseless indicter went on.
+
+"The first who delivered thee the sign thou didst kill."
+
+"That did I not.  On the very contrary, I saved him--saved him from the
+icy death.  Listen brothers."  And then Mervyn went on to give the
+narrative of the events of that wild, sleet-tossed winter night, when we
+first saw him.  He told it graphically and well, speaking in the Pushtu
+with, as had happened throughout all the dialogue, an odd word here and
+there of a coined language peculiar to the Brotherhood, thrown in.
+
+"Now?  Did I not save him from certain death?" he concluded, looking
+with an anxiety which he hoped did not appear, into the fierce faces
+that ringed him round.  But his heart sank within him, as he realised
+that any hopes he might have entertained on that score were doomed; for
+no sign of softening could he trace.  On the contrary, the set grimness
+on every countenance seemed to deepen.
+
+"Not knowing him--then," supplied the stranger, who seemed to have
+constituted himself--or been constituted--judge in chief, or president
+of the proceedings.  "Afterwards--that was made good."  And his eyes
+again seemed fixed with a deeper, more compelling glow, upon those of
+the Englishman.
+
+Mervyn stood as though petrified.  The words, the mesmeric glance seemed
+to take him out of himself--to take him back; back to--something.
+Mechanically he raised a nerveless hand, and passed it over his eyes.
+He saw--yes, assuredly he saw himself in dreamland, as it were.  The
+next words aroused him--brought him to himself--thoroughly, completely.
+And they were spoken by Allah-din Khan.
+
+"Thou double traitor," said the chief, in deep, growling tones.  "For
+the act of disobedience thine end should have been sure--sure but
+swift--the Point of the Star.  For this it shall be long, and lingering.
+Look."
+
+Following the out-darted finger, Mervyn did look, and--
+
+For the first time he became aware of a curious object which stood
+within the grisly vault, and that not far behind him.  It was a long,
+coffin-shaped thing, and now, as two of those who had been seated there
+arose, and, kindling torches from the fire, approached it, he saw that
+it took on another shape, that of a long, lounge bath in fact.  It was
+raised from the floor on metal feet, and the thing itself was made of
+metal, but of such ancient and strange manufacture that the British
+Museum, say, would probably have given a very large sum to possess.  As
+the flare of the torches gleamed upon this he could see something else.
+The fronting side of the structure was engraved with subjects of a
+hideous and revolting nature--that of human beings in process of being
+done to death under every circumstance of prolonged torment, and one of
+them, and the most prominent, by means of just such an implement as
+this.  For there reproduced, was an exact facsimile of it.  A fire was
+represented as burning underneath, and out of it the head and shoulders
+of a man appeared--the open mouthed, staring expression on the face
+conveying the indescribable and ghastly agony which the sufferer was
+undergoing.
+
+Mervyn stared at the thing, and his blood froze.  Here was his own fate
+represented.  To lie for hours in that dreadful bath undergoing a
+process of slow boiling, this was what it meant.  He had heard of this
+being done, knew that it actually was done.  The cold sweat poured from
+his forehead, and he looked wildly in front for a means of putting a
+quick end to his existence.  He had expected the quick, painless death,
+which his guest had died under his own roof at Heath Hover--but this!
+Allah-din Khan's deep voice broke through the terror of the spell that
+was on him.
+
+"Use no art to avoid this, double traitor, for it is thee or another.
+If not thee, then the sun-crowned woman who is with thee shall lie
+yonder.  By the tomb of the Prophet it shall be so."
+
+A mist rose before his eyes and he swayed.  The very fiend from Hell was
+speaking, of a surety.  He wondered whether he could overcome his
+momentary faintness, lest they should think he had eluded them, and
+proceed to put their hellish threat into immediate execution.  Great
+Heaven! was this some awful, shocking nightmare from which he should
+presently wake?  Was ever any one confronted with such an alternative?
+Death he had expected, but these hours perhaps of fiendish torture?  But
+it was himself or Melian.  These devils were not to be balked.
+
+Now he saw that there were piles of kindling wood standing beside the
+horrid implement.  The ring of diabolical faces confronting him looked
+terrific in the fell, ruthless purpose, which he read therein.  But for
+the alternative he would have made a frenzied dash at the nearest weapon
+and died fighting.  Now, the alternative utterly disarmed him.  He would
+make one appeal.
+
+"Give me the Star, that I may die by it," he said.  "I have a right to."
+
+"Thou art no longer of its Brotherhood, double traitor," answered
+Allah-din Khan.  "For thee, the boiling fat."
+
+At a sign from him one of the two who had been mounting guard over the
+entrance advanced, and tearing out handfuls from the stacks of kindling
+wood, began to arrange them beneath the grim receptacle.  The victim
+watched the process with a sort of dazed, numbed attention.
+
+And then, as he looked again at the ring of his tormentors, something he
+saw made him wonder whether his head was going round with him, or
+whether his reeling brain had actually and indeed given way beneath the
+shock.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+AT FAULT.
+
+The hitherto glowering, menacing countenances, had all of a sudden taken
+on a heavy, vacuous expression.  The stare of the fierce eyes had become
+dull and lack-lustre.  Even the forms were swaying.  And then--what
+marvel was this?  The whole group seemed to collapse as one man,
+subsiding to the ground.  There they lay, breathing with a heavy,
+stertorous kind of snore.  All save one.
+
+This was the stranger who had taken so vindictive and ruthless a part in
+the questioning.  He still kept his upright seat, and over his face had
+come no change.  Now he arose, and strode over to the man who kept the
+entrance, deftly manoeuvring between him and the latter.
+
+The Gularzai stared at the towering, authoritative form, but said
+nothing.
+
+"Take this, brother, and swallow it," said the stranger.  "Have no fear.
+It is not death, only short sleep.  But to hesitate will be death."
+And the speaker produced a Browning pistol in one hand, and something
+quite small in the other.
+
+This particular believer was in no hurry to taste the joys of Paradise
+just yet, possibly through some misgiving as to whether he had
+sufficiently earned them.  He glanced at the weapon, then at his
+unconscious tribesmen.  Without a word he reached forth his hand, took
+what was placed therein and--did as directed.  But the effect upon him
+was well nigh instantaneous.  He swayed, staggered, then collapsed upon
+the ground.  There remained now only the man who was engaged in the
+preparation of the bath of torment.  To him, too, were the same
+instructions given.  And he, too, with Oriental stoicism, succumbed to
+the inevitable.  There remained now, in full possession of their
+faculties, only two--Mervyn and the tall sirdar.
+
+"I think, on the whole, I've managed that rather well--so far," said the
+latter, in excellent and refined English.
+
+More than ever did Mervyn think his brain was clean gone.
+
+"Good God!" he ejaculated, giving a violent start and staring at the
+other in the wildest, blankest amazement.
+
+"I don't wonder you've got--er--something of a shock," said Helston
+Varne, looking at him with a touch of concern.  "It was a beastly
+ordeal, but it had to be gone through with."
+
+"But--why didn't you contrive to let me know--to tip me the wink
+somehow?" asked Mervyn helplessly.
+
+"It'd never have done.  It'd have bungled the whole show.  These
+worthies' faculties are much too keen to take any risks with.  But now
+there's no time to talk.  We must get along, and every blessed yard of
+start we steal is worth a lot.  The effect of what I've given them may
+last three hours, but not many minutes longer.  But it was the only
+chance.  Come now.  We shall find your niece all ready--Hussein Khan
+will have taken care of that--also of the residue of the Gularzai."
+
+"Well, Varne!  Of all the geniuses this world ever produced,"--began
+Mervyn, as they got outside--"you're that one.  But, I had no idea you
+could patter the lingo, let alone so faultlessly."
+
+"I was caught young, you see.  Born in this country.  Now let's lose no
+time."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+When Melian, seated in her sleeping quarters, eagerly and with a
+deepening anxiety, listening for the return of her uncle, heard herself
+softly hailed by an English voice which was not his--and stepped forth
+to find herself confronted by a tall Gularzai, her astonishment was not
+much less than that of Mervyn had been.  Him, too, she promptly
+descried, standing behind the other.
+
+"What on earth does it all mean?" she began.  "Why--Mr Varne!"
+
+"Quite right, Miss Seward.  And now, are you ready to start?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Come along then, and we'll go and get the horses.  It'll save time, and
+Hussein Khan has his hands pretty full as it is."
+
+The girl drew back in instinctive alarm as they literally stepped over
+the slumbering forms of their fierce enemies.  Arrived at the picket
+ropes, their horses were promptly bitted and saddled.  To Mervyn's
+suggestion that the Gularzai steeds should be cut loose and turned
+adrift, Helston objected that it would do more harm than good to set
+them stampeding in all directions, would raise the countryside on them
+perhaps even sooner than it would take their captors to recover from the
+effects of the drug.  But already, in obedience to his direction,
+Hussein Khan had secured as much ammunition as he could find, and was
+hurling it over the _khud_.  The Pathan was thoroughly enjoying himself
+now; would have enjoyed himself more, had he been allowed to send a few
+of these his fellow believers to Paradise--or Jehanum--but this he was
+not.
+
+And as they fared forth beneath the stars, which fortunately shone with
+sufficient brilliancy to enable them to distinguish the narrow,
+treacherous, ledgelike paths which they mostly had to thread--conversing
+only in whispers, and that sparingly--the three Europeans at any rate,
+had food for thought.  Mervyn was marvelling at the superhuman, and
+consummate cleverness of this friend in need.  Why, the make-up alone
+was a work of genius, and he said as much.
+
+"It was the easier," answered Helston, "because of the beard.  That's
+genuine.  I let it grow when I started to come out here--not altogether
+by accident either, but because I foresaw circumstances under which I
+might want to `make up'--not your case, incidentally.  A sham one you
+know, would never have humbugged these people for a moment."
+
+"Well, you're a miracle all the same," said the other.
+
+Helston Varne felt justified in being rather pleased with himself.  His
+unexpected and startling discovery that these two were being carried
+away prisoners into the fastnesses of this wild and lawless band, had
+entailed upon him such a shock as he had seldom, if ever quite,
+experienced.  And with it had come the chilling, stunning thought as to
+how he, with all his infinite and practised resource, was going to
+rescue them, and at first it certainly seemed almost hopeless.  But born
+and bred in the East, he had made an especial study of all its dark and
+undercurrent systems.  And he held an important clue.
+
+That find he had made in the old lumber room at Heath Hover he had by no
+means dismissed from his thoughts.  He had pondered over it long and
+deeply, and had not failed to connect it with some episode of Mervyn's
+earlier life.  And the missing link in the chain had been, half
+unconsciously, placed within his grasp by his shikari, Hussein Khan, for
+the latter himself belonged to the Brotherhood of the Star.
+
+But if Hussein Khan was bound to the Brotherhood of the Star, he was
+bound to his European master by an even stronger tie still.  The former
+might take his life, and indeed sooner or later, under the existing
+circumstances would.  For that he cared nothing.  But should he fail the
+latter, in any point, at any crisis, why then his eternal weal, was not
+merely at stake--but doomed.  For who shall explain the mysterious
+ravellings of the dim unfathomable East?  Given these conditions, and
+Helston Varne's unlimited powers of resource and unfailing intrepidity
+availed to do the rest.
+
+Now, under the starlight, he looked at the figure of the girl riding
+next in front of him along the single-file, narrow path.  This was the
+prize for which he had thrown the stake--and he had won.  His nerves
+thrilled exultantly within him at the thought.  It was a trifle
+unsteadying even to him.  There had been no hesitation in his reply when
+his kinsman had put the matter to him point blank.  The time for that
+had gone by.  Now he had saved her--from a fate of which she was in
+blissful ignorance, fortunately, but whose purport he had gleaned during
+his brief sojourn with Allah-din Khan--and his own mind was telling him
+that he had saved her for himself.
+
+From their first meeting on the day when he had been imprisoned in the
+chill mysterious vault at Heath Hover, her image had remained fixed upon
+his mind.  He had not striven to resist the growing fascination; he
+preferred to watch its development--or the reverse--as a matter of
+psychological study; for as we have seen, he did not err on the side of
+coming to Heath Hover too often.  And now, would he win?  He thought he
+would.
+
+Was it by a subtle telepathy that as they fared thus forward through the
+night, and in silence, that she should be thinking exclusively of him?
+Yet she was.  She recalled how she had been looking forward to meeting
+him again--out here, in this wild, strange, and to her, new land.  How,
+too, during the startling, then alarming occurrence of their captivity,
+her thoughts had flown at once to his propinquity as to a tower of
+refuge--she liked that simile and it would often recur.  How, too, she
+had tried to impart that element of hope to her uncle, only to be told
+that their entanglement was even beyond Helston Varne's powers of
+unravelment.  Yet the reverse had befallen.  She had proved right, and
+Helston Varne had come to the rescue, and brought them forth
+triumphantly.  Indeed, that everything was bound to come right if he had
+the settling of it had now become an article of faith with her.
+
+A short halt was made to rest the horses, then on again.  It will be
+remembered that the course of the freebooters had been set so as to
+bring them much nearer to Mazaran, and now with luck, they hoped to
+reach that station in about twenty-four hours' journeying.  Why, Coates
+himself, who had started thither simultaneously with his kinsman's
+venture, would hardly have arrived by then, even if he did not decide to
+wait at Fort Shabal, a small post which lay between his camp and
+Mazaran--for safety's sake.
+
+But with the small hours of the morning came a change, and with it
+anxiety.  For a mist was arising, blotting out the stars; whose light
+indeed they required in that labyrinthine winding through chaotic rocks,
+or along this or that steep mountain side with a precipitous drop not
+far down the slope.  Hussein Khan, the hard, lifelong mountaineer, who
+was guiding, shook a gloomy head as he looked upward and around.  None
+knew better than he what it might portend.  None knew better than he
+that the most practised mountaineer might become helpless as a child
+when plunged in thick mist.  And this mist, though not yet thick, showed
+every tendency to become so.  Added to which a slight drizzle began to
+fall, and none knew better than Hussein Khan the perilous effect, on
+their none too safe paths, of slimy moisture.  And they direly needed
+all the start they could obtain.
+
+But the occurrence would equally check the pursuit of their enemies, for
+there was no doubt but that they would be pursued, and hotly, at the
+earliest available moment?  No, it would not--that is, not necessarily--
+for these knew their way, and would take a line which would have the
+effect of cutting the fugitives off from Mazaran, did the latter lose
+much of the start they had obtained.  For to Hussein Khan, practised
+mountaineer that he was, this was after all more or less strange
+country, and he was shaping his course only by reckoning.
+
+The small hours passed into daybreak, but with the lightening of the
+atmosphere there came no light from without.  The fugitives were swathed
+within dank, heavy, bewildering mist.  They could hardly see each other
+at further than a horse's length apart.  Helston Varne and the shikari
+conferred hurriedly together, and in the result decided that there was
+nothing for it but to call a halt and wait until chance should enable
+them to obtain their bearings.
+
+But chance seemed not inclined to befriend them.  An hour had gone--a
+whole precious hour--and, if anything, the cloud seemed to settle down
+thicker than ever.  There was no wind either, not enough stirring in the
+air to enable those experienced men to form the slightest idea of the
+lay of their course, by that not always reliable method of feeling on
+which side of their face the wind stirred.  Mervyn had more than begun
+to feel gloomy--and looked it.  Helston Varne was feeling nearly as
+gloomy, and did not show it.  But Melian, looking from one to the other,
+felt--well, confident.  Where Helston Varne was taking a hand there was
+no room for failure, had become part of her creed, as we have said.
+
+Another hour went by--two precious hours--eating into the none too wide
+margin of the start they had attained--and that alarmingly.  And then--
+relief showed in their quickly exchanged glances.  The mist had begun to
+roll away.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE MUD-SLIDE.
+
+A puff of damp air came down the slope, driving the vapour before it,
+and bringing a hard, unpleasant downpour.  But this mattered little now.
+The great thing was to be able to distinguish their way.  Girths were
+tightened, and in a moment they were prepared to resume the march.
+
+Even yet they had to move slowly.  The paths, for one thing, were
+extremely slippery, for another, the further side of the valley had not
+begun to show at all.  Then, when it did, and that suddenly, there lay a
+couple of low, mud-walled villages, below, but not very far from their
+way.
+
+Could they pass unseen?  It was in the highest degree important that
+they should.  But as if to put this hope to flight, several dogs, great
+fierce brutes, such as were used by the native herdsmen to protect their
+flocks, came rushing forth, yelling and baying with frantic clamour.
+
+Their owners were not long in following.  But they stopped suddenly.
+The sight of Hussein Khan, and Helston, whose disguise made him look
+every inch a sirdar of the Gularzai--in which capacity, by the way,
+Melian had greatly admired him--allayed their natural suspiciousness.
+Under such escort these Feringhi could not be interfered with, and they
+came no nearer.  But the discovery was untoward, if only on account of
+information these could supply to eventual pursuers.
+
+The villages were left behind, but travelling became perforce slow--
+deadly slow.  The path along the well nigh precipitous slope had become
+so slippery and dangerous, that more than once it was deemed expedient
+to dismount and proceed on foot.  And then, as they rounded the spur in
+front, an exclamation escaped Hussein Khan and his tone took on a note
+of blank dismay.
+
+"Now I see where we have come," he said.  "_Hazur_, it was written that
+we should stray from our course in yonder accursed cloud, which
+assuredly was the breath of Shaitan himself.  Here before us lies the
+Valley of the Mud-slide.  And we must cross that, for there is no
+turning back."
+
+"It is written," was the answer.  "Therefore we will cross it, since
+there is no other way."
+
+In front lay the same steep gigantic slope, sheering upward to a great
+height, and along this they were threading, like flies upon a wall.  The
+other side of this long and narrow gorge was precipitous, being composed
+of tier upon tier of terraced cliff.  And the rain, beating pitilessly
+down, lent huge vastness to the serrated crags rearing black against an
+unbroken murk of sky.  In front, right across their way, sweeping down
+the slope from the high _kotal_ to its base, spreading like a gigantic
+peacock's tail, was the result of a former mud-slide.  It was as though
+the whole mountain side had at one time--and that not so very long
+since, fallen away, bringing millions of tons of blue grey soil with it.
+The base of it filled the bottom of the gorge, though a watercourse had
+drilled its way through, and the sombre thunder of this they could now
+hear, far down between its perpendicular walls of solidified mud.
+
+There was misgiving in the hearts of all three men as they reached the
+edge of this.  Would they be able to cross it.  They were familiar with
+similar freaks in the wild mountain country, but this one was of
+gigantic proportions.  In the regular wet season they might as well try
+to cross a quaking morass, but there had been little rain of late, still
+even that little was enough to turn such a place into a slough.  But
+there was nothing for it.  It was the only way through.  The alternative
+was to retrace their steps right into the teeth of their enemies.  And
+one consolation was theirs.  Once on the other side they knew where they
+were now, and could make up for lost time.
+
+There was no path.  Selecting what to his practised eye seemed the
+firmer ground, Hussein Khan led the way.  Soon the horses were
+laboriously dragging their weighted fetlocks out of the stiff, clinging
+stuff--only to plunge them in deeper with the next step.  Then it became
+manifest that the right course was to dismount, and proceed on foot.
+Helston Varne looked at Melian, so too, did Mervyn.
+
+"I should think Miss Seward could keep the saddle," said the former.
+"She's lighter than we are, and it's infernally laborious going for a
+lady on foot and hampered with skirts."
+
+"Of course she can," came the answer, gustily.  "Lord, I'd like to get
+Mr Allah-din Khan over the sights of this rifle.  I'd drill his
+parchment hide for him.  Ya Mahomed!  I would."
+
+And then, as if in answer to the invocation, something happened.  The
+gloomy, Dantesque valley bellowed to the echoes of a resounding roar,
+the reverberations of two _jezail_ shots behind.  The missiles hummed
+by, rather wide, and sploshed into the ooze of the mud-slide.  Every
+head turned.
+
+Coming along the way they had fled, strung out like hounds, were a
+number of mounted figures.  The dirty white flowing garments, the
+reckless rush of their advance proclaimed their unmistakable identity.
+The time lost in the mist, the deflection from the right track, possibly
+that Helston Varne had miscalculated the duration of the effects of the
+drug which his shikari had deftly inserted into so many hookahs and
+other things--had handicapped the fugitives--and now here was Allah-din
+Khan, and all his cut-throats hot foot behind them, fired, too, with
+baffled hate and the disgrace which had been put upon them.  The _malik_
+of the villages they had passed had not only supplied the chief with
+information, but had turned out his own men--and they very willing--to
+aid in the pursuit.  Two of these indeed, had slipped on in advance, and
+had discharged their jezails, with the result foregiven.
+
+The bulk of the pursuers were still some way behind.  Quickly Helston
+Varne's mind had framed a plan, but it, he saw was but a shadow of a
+one.  Once they were through this slough of despond he would send the
+others on, and himself remaining behind would take cover on its edge,
+and deliberately pick off every one of them as they struggled through
+the semi-morass.  But even he knew that in view of the state of fiery
+exaltation to which they were worked up, his chances of success were not
+great.  They would rush it somehow, just as his own party had themselves
+done, and--there were too many of them.  He sent one look back.
+
+"Hurry on," he urged.  "Mount now, and push the horses for all they're
+worth.  It's our only chance."
+
+And it was done.  How--they knew not.  Perhaps the animals themselves
+caught some of the fever heat excitement of being chased, but
+floundering, plunging, snorting, they found safe, firm foothold at last
+on the other side, and stood panting, and streaming, and utterly blown.
+Here was no safety.  It would take half an hour at least before they had
+sufficient go in them to resume a race for life, and the pursuers had
+time to cross the mud-slide at their leisure.
+
+Mervyn's heart was filled with black, gloomy despair.  It was fated they
+were not to escape.  Well, at the last it would be soon over.  With the
+recollection of that hellish cavern of torture, and the words spoken
+therein, he had made up his mind that Melian should not fall into their
+hands.  They had shown him what they were capable of, and that was
+enough.  One quick merciful shot for her, and the next for himself, and
+that the moment he realised that all hope and chances were gone.
+
+"Now," said Helston Varne.  "You press on to the _kotal_, Mervyn.  I'm
+going to take cover here and keep them back--and directly they get into
+the mud-slide I'm going to massacre them like holy Shaitan.  _Jao_
+Hussein Khan.  Go on Mervyn," he added, more peremptorily, seeing him
+hesitate.  "You've got to take Miss Seward out of this, and I've got
+plenty of ammunition.  I'll catch you up, by and by."
+
+"Well, don't be long," said the other queerly, as he obeyed.
+
+Now two or three more shots straggled across from beyond.  The main body
+of the pursuers came racing up, urging their steeds mercilessly over the
+cruel, stony ground.  Now they were on the edge of the mud-slide.  Wild,
+yelling, threatening shouts went up from them, as they drew their
+tulwars and flashed them furiously in the direction of the fugitives.
+Helston looked back.  The result was not unsatisfactory.  If only he
+could hold up these.  He would try parley.  It would gain a modicum of
+time.
+
+"Brothers," he shouted.  "Go back.  I would not shed your blood, for we
+have eaten together.  But no man reaches this side of the mud-slide
+alive."
+
+For answer, a fierce, blood-thrilling yell of vengeance, as they
+discovered his presence, for they had missed his manoeuvre.  And
+shouting out the torments of hell to which he, and all with him, were
+destined when once more in their hands, they pushed their steeds
+furiously into the slough.
+
+In the chaotic splashing and floundering that ensued, Helston's rifle
+spoke.  The man who rode beside the chief toppled from his saddle.
+Again came the roaring detonation, tossing to and fro from crag to crag.
+Another saddle was emptied, but so far, for reasons of his own, the
+marksman had spared Allah-din Khan.  In the sudden confusion, he poured
+another shot into "the brown," but nothing seemed available to stop that
+rush.  They were mad with revenge and fanaticism.  As a sheer matter of
+time he would not be able to destroy anything like all of them before
+they should cross.  Well, this time the chief must go.  He had been
+given every chance, and the stake being contested was too great.
+
+"Once more go back!" he shouted.  But only a renewed and fiend-like
+scream came in reply, and horses, floundering fetlock deep, were making
+surprising headway, and the wild savage faces were alarmingly nearer.
+He put up the rifle again, and--it swayed in his hands.  He could not
+get the sighting.  The earth under his feet was swaying.  What did it
+mean, in Heaven's name?
+
+There came a deep, growling, rumbling roar.  He looked upward.  Heavens!
+Was the whole world falling over upon him?  In the flash of a moment,
+abandoning all thought of human enemies--of human forces, Helston had
+wrenched his horse from behind the great hump of earth where he had
+sheltered it, and mounting, spurred with hot haste onward and upward in
+the track of those who had gone before.  At the end of a couple of
+hundred yards or so he alighted from his saddle just in time to avoid
+being hurled therefrom in the rocking swaying horror of a moving world,
+and looked back.  A cracking roar, painful to the drums of his ears,
+split the air.  He took in the enormous mass curling over, the volume of
+mud and earth and stones, at least two score of feet high, pouring like
+a gigantic flood down the face of the slide.  He took in the frantic
+struggling crowd of horsemen right in the centre of its road, and then,
+the whole slope took on a new formation as half a mountain side poured
+down it, roaring up stones and mud masses high in the air.  And--of the
+three score and odd Gularzai--pressing on in hate and vengeance to
+destruction--there remained no more trace than there had been before
+their arrival there at all.  That gigantic mud-slide had in a moment
+found a common sepulchre for the lot.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Well, Miss Seward," Helston remarked, as somewhat shaken by the
+stupendous awesomeness of the phenomenon, he rejoined the fugitive
+group, higher up.  "Allah is on our side this time anyhow."
+
+"Yes," she said in an awed tone.  "What a sight!  But what was it?  An
+earthquake?"
+
+"Another mud-slide, like the one which formed the first--or a little of
+both.  Maybe a touch of earthquake that started it off.  But we were
+through just in time, and--good-bye to Allah-din Khan and Co."
+
+"Whom I hope are grilling in their Jehanum," growled Mervyn, with the
+recollection of his own ordeal fresh upon him.
+
+"Well, there's nothing between us and Mazaran now," pronounced Helston
+Varne, "and the sooner we get there the better.  No, Miss Seward.  You'd
+better not look back.  Get it out of your mind."
+
+For Melian's gaze seemed riveted on the gloomy Dantesque gorge, now half
+barred up by the tremendous convulsion of Nature which had taken effect
+right under her very eyes, and the thought of the buried men lying
+there--even though they were fierce barbarians and fanatical enemies,
+still they had been engulfed in the horrible cataclysm right under her
+eyes.  But she recognised the other's advice was sound, and laid herself
+out to follow it.  And the reaction of feeling that they were all in
+comparative safety largely helped.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+ENVOI.
+
+John Seward Mervyn lay back in his accustomed armchair and puffed very
+contentedly at his pipe.  The fire burned clearly in the deep,
+old-fashioned fireplace, and the room looked exactly the same as when we
+first discovered him in it.  Even the wind, swirling boisterously around
+the gables of Heath Hover, seemed to sound the same note, but it was not
+snow-laden this time, for autumn had not yet fairly gone out.  The same
+little black kitten, though it was no longer a kitten now, still it had
+grown not much larger, and was as fluffy and almost as playful as ever,
+had jumped up on to his knee and sat there purring.
+
+"Fill up, Varne," he said, pushing the square bottle over to his
+companion--the glow of glasses and syphons between them shone merrily in
+the cheerful lamplight.  "And now--we can talk.  No, it's all right.
+She can't hear," following an almost imperceptible lift of the other's
+eyebrows toward the ceiling, the sound of footsteps on the upper side of
+this betokening that Melian was undergoing the intricate and protracted
+process of feminine turning in.
+
+Helston Varne, ensconced in the opposite chair, mixed himself a
+deliberate peg and relit his pipe.  He was, in fact, more interested
+than--from force of habit--he allowed to appear, for now he was going to
+learn at first hand what he had pieced together in theory.
+
+"First of all, tell me," went on Mervyn.  "I haven't asked you yet, was
+purposely waiting until we got back here--on the very scene of it all,
+so to say.  How did you get your cue to play up to on that Star
+business, when you were doing inquisitor-in-chief in that damnable
+hell-cave?"
+
+"Mainly from deduction, I found the confirmation--here."
+
+"Here?  How--when?"  And remembering various manoeuvres of his own--
+here--Mervyn might well give way to amazement.
+
+"You remember that day you came back from Clancehurst, and found me in
+the old lumber room.  I had just discovered it then, and shoved back the
+old sideboard barely in time when you came in."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+The other nodded.
+
+"I'll astonish you still further, Mervyn," he said.  "Before it got
+there it reposed under a roundish topped stone on the sluice path.  You
+transhipped it while you had me locked up in the cellar yonder."
+
+"Wrong there, Varne," said Mervyn, with something of a chuckle, "but not
+altogether though.  I did transfer that one, but it wasn't the one you
+found.  That was kindly delivered here since, and it was the one I
+stowed away upstairs temporarily.  By the way I take it you have some
+inkling of what those things represent?"
+
+"Perhaps I have."
+
+"Well, then--they are charged with a most deadly, subtle, and hitherto
+unknown poison.  The touch of a hidden spring in the centre releases
+this, and then the merest invisible pin-prick from any one of the
+points--good-night!  Well just imagine my feelings when I looked out of
+the window to see Melian airily coming down the path with that infernal
+thing in her hand.  I wonder I didn't faint.  Well, that was the one you
+found."
+
+The other started at the mention of Melian in this connexion, and his
+face took on something of the look of horror which had come over that of
+his host, evolved by the bare recollection.
+
+"Yes, indeed.  I can imagine them," he said.  "Then the man you pulled
+out of the water--and who incidentally was instrumental in setting up
+the great Heath Hover mystery, brought the first?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"What have you done with these two infernal things up to date, Mervyn?"
+asked Helston Varne, not without some shade of anxiety.
+
+"They're both snug and safe till the Day of Judgment at the bottom of
+the deepest part of Plane Pond.  Thickly rolled up, well weighted, and
+by this time under six feet of mud and twenty of water.  If they drained
+the pond they'd never find them."
+
+Helston Varne nodded approvingly.
+
+"It's an interesting case, Mervyn--very.  But--do you know, I was very
+much getting on to the hang of it when--well, when we began to know each
+other."
+
+"The devil you were?  I knew you were--trying to."
+
+"I know you did.  Well, we've been through a strange experience together
+since then haven't we?  But it's an infernally inconsequent world.  For
+instance why should I have predicted to Coates that you would be sure to
+turn up over there again, and he have predicted that it would be bad for
+you if you did?  And--we were both right."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+There was silence for a few moments.  Both lay back in their chairs
+puffing out contented clouds of smoke, and gazing into the red-hot wood
+cavern.  Without the wind howled.
+
+"Do you know, Varne," resumed Mervyn, meditatively.  "It's a deuced odd
+thing, but that chap I got out of the pond, you know--to this day I
+can't make out whether I killed him or whether he killed himself.  He
+died from a prick from the Star anyhow, because none of the doctors
+could make head or tail of it, and by an inspiration of luck I had been
+careful to hide away the thing."
+
+"If you only knew what sleepless nights you've entailed upon Nashby.
+He's just as suspicious as ever, you know.  When I saw him in
+Clancehurst the other day he looked at _me_ suspiciously.  Thinks I've
+deserted to the other side."
+
+"Oh damn Nashby.  He's a fool," came the gusty reply.  "Well Varne, you
+know all about the finding of the chap dead, and the inquest, and all
+that.  Very well.  I had a sort of instinct against him from the moment
+I saw him in the full light.  After I had left him to turn in on that
+sofa, I took precautions against him--I mean against him getting near me
+during the night.  Now,"--lowering his voice to what was almost a
+whisper, and an impressive one, "I am almost certain I went down--in my
+sleep--and--turned the Star upon him.  In my sleep, mind, and
+unconsciously.  For, I give you my word that when the thing dropped off
+him in the morning the discovery came upon me as a wild and entire
+surprise.  But it seemed to bring back a lot, and that with a rush."
+
+The other emitted two deliberate puffs of smoke.
+
+"If it's as you say, Mervyn, you are not responsible, but whether it is
+or not--or whether the chap was careless over handling the infernal
+machine, and so did for himself--and I don't see why you shouldn't give
+yourself the benefit of the doubt--the result's the same, and a good one
+for you, in that we shouldn't be here talking to-night, if he had lived
+another day.  Had you any reason, by the way, to expect the attentions
+of this amiable confraternity?"
+
+Mervyn knitted his brows and hesitated.
+
+"Well, yes.  I had," he said at length.  "I had received signs to put
+myself under its orders again.  I had chucked it--clean, altogether--for
+years, in fact I thought that the very act of coming to this out of the
+way place would--well, blot out the trail.  But I took no notice of
+them, and--this was the consequence.  There's no mistake about it, mind.
+I've no idea as to the man's identity, but I recognised him, not at
+first, but the next morning, as one of those light coloured Afghans.  He
+was Europeanised and talked English perfectly.  Then, of course, I had
+the key to the whole situation."
+
+"Well, as I said, if he had lived, you would not have," said the other.
+
+"I've sometimes thought," rejoined Mervyn, "and that's the only thing
+that has bothered me--that is supposing I really did--you know--that
+after saving his life, he might have backed out of his errand."
+
+But Helston Varne shook his head slowly.
+
+"I can't presume to teach _you_ your East, Mervyn.  But--I think you are
+mistaken there."
+
+"Perhaps I am--most likely I am," came the answer.  "Anyway, Varne, I'm
+not going to stick on here any more, so if they plant another of those
+little reminders on me they'll have to find out where I've got to."
+
+"They won't," said the other.  "And when you're in that jolly little
+cottage inside my park that you've promised me to inhabit, for--well, as
+long as it suits you--I think it'll be a risky matter for any one to
+come fooling round you on that sort of errand."
+
+And then the two men talked on--on this topic and others--far into the
+night.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Since her return to Heath Hover Melian had experienced none of the fears
+and misgivings which had hung over her before.  The "influence" what
+ever it was, seemed to have ceased, or was it in abeyance?  Anyway, with
+Helston Varne under the same roof nothing mattered.  It seemed as if
+nothing could matter.
+
+For here he was, installed at Heath Hover as a guest, he who had first
+come there as a spy, and that in a hostile interest to his now host.  He
+had not returned from the East in their company.  With marvellous self
+denial--or self control--or both, he had waited a week later, and then
+returned alone.  Characteristically he had reckoned that just that
+period of time without him would deepen Melian's interest in him, would
+cause her to miss him, in short--or not.  If so, and he felt justified
+in feeling sanguine--why there were all their lives before them to make
+up for it in.  If not--well, he refused to contemplate such a
+contingency.
+
+They had stayed at Mazaran just long enough for a rest after their hard,
+perilous experiences, but Mervyn had seemed as eager to get away from
+the country as before he had been to return to it.  Helston had seen
+them off at Karachi, himself taking a passage which brought him home
+nearly as soon as themselves.  And now he had arrived at Heath Hover the
+evening before, and certainly had found no cause to complain of the
+nature of his welcome.
+
+The clear, brisk, bracing air lay upon Plane Pond, and upon the
+reddening woods which flowed down to it, in the early morning, and the
+voices of birds lifted in their late autumn song, ere silencing for
+drear winter, made music in "Broceliande."  The girl, tripping lightly
+up the sluice path, felt all the invigorating influence of it go through
+her system like a stimulant.
+
+"Good morning, Sirdar."
+
+Helston Varne turned.  He had been leaning on the rail gazing out over
+the expanse of water, thinking; and what he was thinking about was
+embodied in this vision of youth and bright sweetness which now stood
+before him in the early freshness of morning.  Melian had taken to
+calling him "Sirdar" since she had seen him in his wonderful Eastern
+make-up.  But neither of the two men had ever told her the extent of the
+ghastly peril which the wonderful success of that make-up had been
+instrumental in delivering them from.
+
+She put out both hands and he took them--both.  He held them for quite a
+moment, gazing into the sweet blue eyes.
+
+"Come," he said, still holding them.  "We'll stroll a little through
+`Broceliande,' the enchanted forest."
+
+She looked at him, and said nothing; and they went, and as they went he
+drew one of the long white hands over his arm and covered it with one of
+his brown ones.  And what they said in "Broceliande," the enchanted
+forest, under the old gnarled oaks--why, reader, that is no earthly
+concern of yours or mine.  What may be, however, is that they emerged
+eventually therefrom perfectly happy, and at peace with all the world.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Heath Hover Mystery, by Bertram Mitford
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