was dried up.

There was no answer, no stir, no noise. The silence that exists between
the stars seemed to close in upon him. Then he really knew what fear
was. He admitted to himself that he was unmistakably and horribly
afraid. He admitted that life was inconceivably precious, and the
instinct to preserve it the greatest of all instincts. And gradually he
came to see that the safest course was the most desperate course, and
gradually his courage triumphed over his fear.

He dropped gently to his hands and knees, and began, with a thousand
precautions, to crawl like a serpent towards the outer hall. The
darkened lamp he held between his teeth. If the mysterious will fired
again, the mysterious will would almost to a certainty fire harmlessly
over his head. At last his hands touched the portiere. He hesitated,
listened, and put one hand under the portiere. Then, relighting the
lamp, he sprang up with a yell on the other side of the portiere, and
clutched for the unseen intelligence.

But there was nothing. He stood alone in the outer hall. To his right
lay the side-passage between the drawing-room and the _cabinet de
toilette_, which Camilla had used on the night of her engagement. In
front of him was a door, slightly ajar, which led to the servants'
quarters. He gazed around, breathing heavily.

CHAPTER XVII

POLYCARP AND HAWKE'S MAN

Then it was that he heard a noise, something between scratching and
fumbling, on the further side of the front-door, in the main corridor of
the flats. He could see through the ground glass over the door that the
corridor was lighted as usual.

He thought: 'Someone is breaking the seal on that door!' And his next
idea was: 'Since the seal is being broken in the full light of the
public corridor, it is being broken by someone who has the right to
break it. Only one man has the right, and that man is Francis Tudor's
executor, Senior Polycarp.'

The noise of scratching and fumbling ceased, and a key was placed in the
lock.

Hugo hastily extinguished his lamp, and hid behind the portiere.
Immediately the lamp was extinguished he observed, what he had not
observed before, that a faint light came through the aperture of the
door leading to the servants' quarters.

The front-door opened, and he heard footsteps in the hall. Then ensued a
pause. Then the footsteps advanced, and the newcomer evidently went into
the room where the faint light was.

'Come out of that!'

Yes;