saw things
there on foggy nights."

The inspector lowered his voice to a more serious key.

"The angle I don't like is that Alden's valet was found dead in those
woods yesterday morning. Not a mark on him. Coroner, I believe, says
apoplexy, but Alden's nervous, and the rest of the help cleared out. I
suppose they'll get somebody else up as soon as they can. Meantime Alden
and his wife are alone with old John. Confound it, Nora, I had to send
him somebody."

"But without a word of this!"

"I tell you I don't like it. I didn't want to do it. It was Alden's
idea--would have it that way. Frankly I don't make it out, but maybe,
being on the spot, he knows best."

"There's something here," she said, "that we can't understand--maybe
something big. It isn't fair to Jim."

The inspector looked up slyly.

"Jim," he said, "can take care of himself if anybody can. Seems to me
you're pretty anxious. Sure you haven't anything to tell me about you
and him? If you had, I might make a place for him watching these
ten-cent lunch joints to see that customers didn't carry away the
hardware and crockery. Then all the danger you'd have to worry about
would be that he might eat the food."

But Nora failed to smile. She glanced away, shaking her head.

"I've nothing to tell you, father," she answered. "Nothing now. I don't
know. Honestly I don't know. I only know I've been through one such
experience, and if anything happened to Jim that I could help, I'd never
forgive myself."

CHAPTER VIII

THROUGH THE DARK

The night had gathered swiftly behind a curtain of rain. Garth, glancing
out the window of the train, saw that darkness was already close upon a
somber and resentful world. Pines, hemlocks, and birches stretched
limitlessly. The rain clung to their drooping branches like tears, so
that they expressed an attitude of mourning which their color clothed
convincingly. The roaring of the train was subdued, as if it hesitated
to disturb the oppressive silence through which it passed.

The car, nearly empty, was insufficiently lighted. Garth answered to the
growing depression of his surroundings. His paper, already
well-explored, no longer held him. He continued to gaze from the window,
speculating on the goal towards which he was hurrying through this bleak
desolation. The inspector's phrase was suddenly informed with meaning.
He was, in every sense, advancing through the dark. The realization left
him with a troubles