s were benevolent was a conclusion that had forced itself upon
her soul.

Groping for her dressing-gown, she found it and put it on without
striking a light. And though she carried a box of matches in her hand,
she believed she would not need them, for the way was perfectly simple
and well known to her--a long passage that led to the dining-room, at
one end of which was the great, iron-barred front door.

Her feet and hands found the way quietly, and she reached the front
door without incident, but when she felt for the great bar whose
strident clanging in its bracket had been a last signal of night within
the house, her hand encountered nothing. Wonderingly she slid her
fingers up and down the polished oak. At last she realized that the
bar hung loose; the door was merely on the latch. Someone beside
herself who dwelt within the house had business without its portals
that night and was still abroad!

For the first time, the girl's purpose faltered. A slow fear pierced
her, and her feet refused to take her farther. The thought flashed
into her mind that, if she passed the door, she might find herself
locked out, with the night--and she knew not what beside.

Even as she stood there hesitating, trying to collect her courage, a
sound--the soft tread of a foot on gravel--told her that some other
being was close by. There came the same stealthy tread in the porch.
Swiftly she shrank back into the embrasure of one of the long windows,
thankful for the green blinds against which her dark dressing-gown
would give no sign. With one full sleeve, she shrouded her face. She
had suddenly become terribly aware of being nothing but a slight girl
in a nightgown and wrap, with bare feet thrust into straw slippers.
She remembered stories she had heard of struggles in the darkness with
powerful natives, and her heart turned to water.

It seemed to her the most horrible moment of her life while she stood
shrinking there in the shadow, listening to the door open and close,
the bar being replaced, the quiet, regular breathing of that other
person. Whoever it was, his movements were calm and undisturbed, but
Christine could see nothing, only a large, dim outline that moved
sure-footedly across the room, opened another door on the far side,
closed it, and was gone.

There were so many other doors, so many other passages. All Christine
could be certain of and thankful for was that it was not her door and
her passage that had