a minute," she said, rising and going into the
hall. But in an instant she was back. "A word to my maid and a covering
for my head," she explained, "and I will be with you." Her manner
pointed unmistakably to the door.

I had no alternative but to step out on the porch to await her. But she
was true to her word and in a moment she had joined me, with the key in
her hand.

"Oh, what adventures!" was her breathless cry. "Shall I ever forget this
dreadful, this interminable week! But it is dark. Even the moon is
clouded over. How shall we see? There are no lights in the bungalow."

"I have a lantern in my pocket. My only hope is that no stray gleam from
it may pierce the shrubbery and bring the police upon us."

"Do you fear the police?" she chatted away, almost as a child might.

"No; but I want to do my work alone. There will be little glory or
little money in it if they share any of my discoveries."

"Ah!" It was an irrepressible exclamation, or so it seemed: but I should
not have noted it if I had not caught, or persuaded myself that I had
caught, the oblique glint from her eye which accompanied it. But it was
very dark just at this time and I could be sure of nothing but that she
kept close to my side and seemed more than once on the point of
addressing me in the short distance we traversed before reaching the
bungalow. But nothing save inarticulate murmurs left her lips and soon
we were too busy, in our endeavors to unlock the door, to think of
conversation.

The key she had brought was rusty. Evidently she had not often made use
of it. But after a few futile efforts I succeeded in making it work, and
we stepped into the small building in a silence that was only less
profound than the darkness in which we instantly found ourselves
enveloped. Light was under my hand, however, and in another moment there
opened before us the small square room whose every feature had taken on
a ghostly and unfamiliar air from the strange hour and the unwonted
circumstances. I saw how her impressionable nature was affected by the
scene, and made haste to assume the offhand air I thought most likely to
overcome her apprehension. But the effect of the blank walls before her,
relieved, but in no reassuring way, by the long dark folds of the rugs
hanging straight down over the mysterious partition, held its own
against my well-meant efforts, and I was not surprised to hear her voice
falter as she asked what I expected to find there.