ing he had eaten
nothing and he began to feel the physical want in a craving that was
becoming acutely uncomfortable. If Obadiah had not returned to his home
he made up his mind that he would find entrance to the cabin and help
himself. A sudden turn in the path which he was following, however,
revealed one of the councilor's windows aglow with light, and as he
pressed quietly around the end of the building the sound of a low voice
came to him through the open door. Cautiously he approached and peered
in. A large oil lamp, the light of which he had seen in the window, was
burning on a table in the big room but the voice came from the little
closet into which Obadiah had taken him the preceding night. For several
minutes he crouched and listened. He heard the chuckling laugh of the
old councilor--and then an incoherent raving that set his blood
tingling. There is a horror in the sound of madness, a horror that
creeps to the very pit of one's soul, that sends shivering dread from
every nerve center, that causes one who is alone with it to sweat with a
nameless fear. It was the voice of madness that came from that little
room. Before it Nathaniel quailed as if a clammy hand had reached out
from the darkness and gripped him by the throat. He drew back shivering
in every limb, and the voice followed him, shrieking now in a sudden
burst of insane mirth and dying away a moment later in a hollow cackling
laugh that seemed to curdle the blood in his veins. Mad! Obadiah Price
was mad! Step by step Nathaniel fell back from the door. He felt himself
trembling from head to foot. His heart thumped within his breast like
the beating of a hammer. For an instant there was silence--a silence in
which strange dread held him breathless while he watched the glow in the
door and listened. And after that quiet there came suddenly a cry that
ended in the exultant chattering of a name.

At the sound of that name Nathaniel sprang forward again. It was
Marion's name and he strained his ears to catch the words that might
follow it. As he listened, his head thrust half in at the door,
Obadiah's voice became lower and lower, until at last it ceased
entirely. Not a step, not a deep breath, not the movement of a hand
disturbed the stillness of the little room. By inches Nathaniel drew
himself inside the door. His heavy boot caught in a sliver on the step
but the rending of wood brought no response. It was the quiet of death
that pervaded the cabin, it