omprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full explanation,
to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found them, the one
dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a thoughtless frenzy
as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the club-house door behind
her. That she, on her return home, should have had sufficient presence of
mind to toss these keys down in the same place from which she or her
sister had taken them, argued well for her clear-headedness up to that
moment. The fever must have come on later--a fever which with my
knowledge of what had occurred at The Whispering Pines, seemed the only
natural outcome of the situation.

The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands' coachman, declared that Arthur's
cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that night. They
were both in place when he returned to the stable towards early morning,
but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out in the snow since
he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the stable-door at that
time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where any one could get it.
This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted to go out late,
sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that he had done so
this night, though how the horse happened to be back and in her stall and
no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads than his to
explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.

There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using his
cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot and
designated the coachman's tale as all bosh. "I was not the only one who
had a drop too much down-town," was the dogged assertion with which he
met all questions on this subject. "I wouldn't give a snap of my finger
for Zadok's opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing and the
necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been out when I
got home." As this was about noon the next day, his opinion on this point
could not be said to count for much.

As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by these
means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too cold, a
storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a walk on a
road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur was a