xcept the
far, hollow stamping of some stabled horse.

Softly he pushed the door open and he and Aimee slipped within. The
place, whatever it was, appeared deserted, a dark, bare, backstairs
region--for he stumbled over a bucket--from which to the right he
could just discern a hall leading into the forward part of the
palace, wanly lighted some distance on, with the pale flicker of an
old ceiling lamp.

They seemed to be at the end of the hall and the darker shadows in
the walls about them appeared to be a number of doors--closed, so
his groping hands informed him.

Oh, for his excavator's steady light, or a pocket flash! Oh, for a
light of any kind, even a temporary match! But he dared not risk the
scratch, for now he caught the thud of footfalls overhead, heavy
footfalls, and there might be stairs unexpectedly close at hand.

He turned to Aimee but the girl shook her head helplessly and
hesitant and dashed, for all their young confidence, they wavered a
moment hand in hand in the dark, fearful of what a rash move might
bring upon them. And in the beating stillness Ryder became conscious
that the muffled, monotonous stamping of a horse is a gloomy,
disheartening thing in the night, and that footsteps overhead are of
all noises the most nervous and unsettling.

What was behind those doors? Not a spark of light came from them,
that was one comfort. The rooms, kitchen, service, store rooms or
whatever they were, appeared in the same blackness and oblivion....
But any door might open on a roomful of sleeping gardeners and
grooms....

Life and more than life hung on the blind goddess.

It was only an instant that they hesitated there, yet it appeared an
eternity of indecision, then nearer footsteps sounded, coming down
that hall. No more wavering of the scales!

Ryder turned to the door at his left, at the very end of the wall
beyond which came that far stamping, and wrenched it open, closing
it swiftly behind him. He saw a light now, a mild, yellow ray
through an opened door ahead that vaguely illumined the strange old
vehicles of the palace, and the stables were beyond.

Some one else was beyond, too, in the stables, for that very instant
he saw a black horse backed restively into sight, its tossing head
evading the hands that were trying to bridle it.

"The Fortieth Door!" said Ryder to himself with an involuntary
thrust of humor.

The door of the horse! The door of forbidden daring! He knew now the
vague