o get Simmonds. Will you stay?"

"Yes," I said, "of course. But please get back as soon as you can."

"I will," he promised, and, after a last look around the room, stepped
out upon the walk.

I went to the door and looked after him until the sound of his
footsteps died away. Then, feeling very lonely, I turned back into the
room. Those regular tremors were still shaking the girl's body in a
way that seemed to me most alarming, but there was nothing I could do
for her, and I finally pulled a chair to Swain's side. He, at least,
offered a sort of companionship. He was sitting with his head hanging
forward in a way that reminded me most unpleasantly of the huddled
figure by the table, and did not seem to be aware of my presence. I
tried to draw him into talk, but a slight nod from time to time was
all I could get from him, and I finally gave it up. Mechanically, my
hand sought my coat pocket and got out my pipe--yes, that was what I
needed; and, sitting down in the open doorway, I filled it and lighted up.

My nerves grew calmer, presently, and I was able to think connectedly
of the events of the night, but there were two things which, looked at
from any angle, I could not understand. One was Swain's dazed and
incoherent manner; the other was the absence of servants.

As to Swain, I believed him to be a well-poised fellow, not easily
upset, and certainly not subject to attacks of nerves. What had
happened to him, then, to reduce him to the pitiable condition in
which he had come back to us over the wall, and in which he was still
plunged? The discovery of the murder and of Miss Vaughan's senseless
body might have accounted for it, but his incoherence had antedated
that--unless, indeed, he knew of the murder before he left the
grounds. That thought gave me a sudden shock, and I put it away from
me, not daring to pursue it farther.

As to the house, its deserted condition seemed sinister and
threatening. It was absurd to suppose that an establishment such as
this could be carried on without servants, or with less than three or
four. But where were they? And then I remembered that Godfrey and I
had not completed our exploration of the house. We had stopped at the
gruesome room where the adept and his serpent gazed unwinking into the
crystal sphere. There was at least one suite on the same floor we had
not looked into, and no doubt there were other rooms on the attic
floor above. But that any one could have slept on und