ned
thoughtfully, but seemingly with coldness. Druel looked from Gale to
Duke, and appeared occasionally to put in a word to carry the argument
along.

De Spain suspected nothing of what they were talking about, but he was
uneasy concerning Nan, and was not to be balked, by any combination,
of his purpose of finding her. To secure information concerning her
was not possible, unless he should enter the house, and this, with
scant hesitation, he decided to do.

He wore a snug-fitting leathern coat. He unbuttoned this and threw it
open as he stepped noiselessly up to the door. Laying his hand on the
knob, he paused, then, finding the door unlocked, he pushed it slowly
open.

The wind, rushing in, upset his calculations and blew open the door
leading from the hall into the living-room. A stream of light in turn
shot through the open door, across the hall. Instantly de Spain
stepped inside and directly behind the front door--which he now
realized he dare not close--and stood expectant in the darkness. Gale
Morgan, with an impatient exclamation, strode from the fireplace to
close the front door.

As he walked into the hall and slammed the front door shut, he could
have touched with his hand the man standing in the shadow behind it.
De Spain, not hoping to escape, stood with folded arms, but under the
elbow of his left arm was hidden the long muzzle of his revolver.
Holding his breath, he waited. Gale's mind was apparently filled with
other things. He did not suspect the presence of an intruder, and he
walked back into the living-room, partly closing the second door. De
Spain, following almost on his heels, stepped past this door, past the
hall stairs opposite it, and through a curtained opening at the end of
the hall into the dining-room. Barely ten feet from him, this room
opened through an arch into the living-room, and where he stood he
could hear all that was said.

"Who's there?" demanded Duke gruffly.

"Nobody," said Gale. "Go on, Druel."

"That door never opened itself," persisted Duke.

"The wind blew it open," said Gale impatiently.

"I tell y' it didn't," responded Duke sternly; "somebody came in
there, or went out. Maybe she's slipped y'."

"Go up-stairs and see," bellowed Gale at his uncle.

Duke walked slowly out into the hall and, with some difficulty, owing
to his injured back, up the stairs. A curtain hung beside the arch
where de Spain stood, and this he now drew around him. Gale walked
into t