to have me take a look under that
monumental bed I shall be most happy to do it."

She hesitated, yet she knew she would do it herself, after he had gone.
While she was hesitating, Pats drew aside the tapestry and passed with
the candelabrum into the chamber. He made a careful survey of the
territory beneath the bed and reported it free of robbers. Solomon,
also, was investigating; and Pats, who was doing this solely for
Elinor's peace of mind, knew well that if a human being were anywhere
about the dog would long ago have announced him. But they made a tour of
the room, looking behind and under the larger objects, lifting the lids
of the marriage chests and opening the doors of the cupboard. Into the
cellar, too, they descended, and made a careful search. The five candles
produced a weird effect in their promenade along this subterraneous
apartment, lighting up an astonishing medley of furniture, garden
implements, empty bottles, the posts and side pieces of an extra bed, a
broken statue, another wheelbarrow, a lot of kindling wood, and the
empty corner where the coffin had awaited its mission. There seemed to
be everything except the man they were looking for.

"Fearfully cold down here!" Pats's teeth chattered as he spoke, and he
shivered from crown to heel.

"Cold! It doesn't seem so to me," and her tone suggested a somewhat
contemptuous surprise.

"To me it is like the chill of death." The candles shook in his hand as
he spoke.

"Perhaps you have taken cold," and with stately indifference she moved
on toward the stairs.

"Proximity of a Boston iceberg more likely." But this was not spoken
aloud.

Upstairs, when about to take his departure, Pats was still shivering. As
he stood for a moment before the embers in the big open fireplace at the
end of the cottage, his eyes rested upon a chest near by, with a rug and
a cushion on the top, evidently used as a lounge by the owner. After
hesitating a moment, he asked:

"Would you object to my occupying the top of that chest, just for
to-night?"

As she turned toward him he detected a straightening of the figure and
the now familiar loftiness of manner which he knew to be unfailing signs
of anger--or contempt. Possibly both.

"Certainly not. If you have a cold, it is better you should remain near
the fire. I have no objections to sleeping in that other house. You say
there _is_ another house."

"Oh, yes! There is another house," he hastened to explain. "And it