f
the Hillsborough bank.

It was a long walk from the cottage, and Geoffrey, as he trudged up hill
against the wind, was surprised to find how much snow had already
fallen. He had expected to return to New York the next day, but now a
fair prospect of being stalled on the way presented itself. It took him
so much longer to reach the house than he had supposed, that he
abandoned all idea of entering it. It stood before him grimly like a
mountain of grey stone, its face plastered with snow. He walked round
it, feeling each door and window to be sure of the fastenings. Once past
the corner, the house sheltered him from the wind. He was conscious of
that exhilaration snow storms so often bring, while at the same time the
atmosphere of desolation that surrounds all shut up houses, even one's
own, took hold of him. Unconsciously he stopped and felt in his pocket
for his revolver, and at the same moment, faintly, in the interior of
the house, he heard a clock strike.

The sound was not perhaps alarming in itself, yet it sounded ominously
in Geoffrey's ears. He recognised, or thought he recognised, the bell.
It was that of an old French clock he had bought, and had never had put
in order. He had never been able to make it go, but once touching it
inadvertently he had aroused in it a breath of life so that it had
struck one,--this same sweet piercing note. Who, he wondered, was
touching it now?

Geoffrey was one of those who act best and naturally without delay. Now
he hesitated not at all. He had the keys of the house in his pocket, and
he moved quickly toward a side door which he remembered swung silently
on its hinges. It was not so much that he believed that there was any
one in the house--perhaps to the most apprehensive a burglar comes as a
surprise--but he felt he had too good grounds for suspicion to fail to
investigate.

He unlocked the door without a sound. As he stepped within, doubt was
put an end to by the patch of white light that, streaming out of the
library door, fell across the passageway before him. He stooped down and
took off his boots, and then cautiously approached the open door and
looked in, knowing that darkness and preparation were in his favour.

His caution was unnecessary, for his entrance had not been heard. The
Hillsborough theory of the femininity of the burglar instantly fell to
the ground. A man of medium size was standing before one of the
bookcases with his elbow resting near the clock;