ke over reason and
had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow
and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness,
and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and
wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the
figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
presence there.

But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try
how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was
almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.
As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other,
but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him
that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be
in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once,
stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had
returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said:

"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
Hartley and I."

It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to
Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he
went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting
among them? What invisible nets for his feet?

And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
had become convinced that his movements were being watched--and that
would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself. Faces vaguely
familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafes.
Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La
Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been
left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day
before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he came out
from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another
motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte
de Versailles, and he saw it again after he ha