ant to rouse the whole place? Why can't he come
quietly?"

Ste. Marie began to run forward, slipping the pistol out of his pocket
and holding it ready in his hand, for his quick ears told him that there
was more than one pair of feet coming through the night. He went to
where he could command the approach from the house and halted there, but
all at once he gave a low cry and started forward again, for he saw that
Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara were running together, and that they were
in desperate haste. He called out to them, and the girl cried:

"Go to the door in the wall! The door in the wall! Oh, be quick!"

He fell into step beside her, and as they ran he said,

"You're going with him? You're coming with us?"

The girl answered him, "No, no!" and she sprang to the little, low door
and began to fit the iron key into the lock.

The three men stood about her, and young Arthur Benham drew his breath
in great, shivering gasps that were like sobs.

"They heard us!" he cried, in a whisper. "They're after us. They heard
us on the stairs. I--stumbled and fell. For God's sake, Coira, be
quick!"

The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key, and dropped upon her
knees to see the better. Once she said, in a whisper: "I can't turn it.
It won't turn." And at that Richard Hartley pushed her out of the way
and lent his greater strength to the task.

A sudden, loud cry came from the house, a hoarse, screeching cry in a
voice which might have been either man's or woman's, but was as mad and
as desperate and as horrible in that still night as the screech of a
tortured animal--or of a maniac. It came again and again, and it was
nearer.

"Oh, hurry, hurry!" said the girl. "Can't you be quick? They're coming."

And as she spoke the little group about the wall heard the engine of the
motor-car outside start up with a staccato roar and knew that the
faithful chauffeur was ready for them.

"I'm getting it, I think," said Richard Hartley, between his teeth. "I'm
getting it. Turn, you beast! Turn!"

There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie spun about. He cried:

"Don't wait for me! Jump into the car and go! Don't wait anywhere! Come
back after you've left Benham at home!"

He began to run forward toward those running feet, and he did not know
that the girl followed after him. A short distance away there was a
little open space of moonlight, and in its midst, at full career, he met
the Irishman O'Hara, a gaunt