arted adventuring.

"Why," he asked himself, "won't these people talk? What do they expect
me to find in this house?"

When he turned back he saw that Alden's eyes were closed. The regular
rising and falling of his chest warned Garth to quietness. He would not
disturb the worn-out man. So he pressed the electric bell and walked to
the hall. He met John there.

"Please show me to my room," he said. "Mr. Alden's asleep. Perhaps you'd
better speak to his wife before you disturb him."

John bowed and led him upstairs.

"Good-night, sir," he said, opening the door. "May you sleep well. It's
a little hard here lately."

He hesitated. He cleared his throat.

"You couldn't persuade him to send his wife away?" he went on at last.
"She's not strong, sir. It's pitiful."

"See here, John," Garth said impulsively. "I know it's against the
rules, but tell me what's wrong here. What are you all afraid of?"

The old man's lips moved. His eyes sought Garth's urgently. With a
visible effort he backed out of the room. His glance left Garth. When he
opened his lips all he said was:

"Good-night, sir."

Garth closed the door, shrugging his shoulders. Of what a delicacy the
threat must be to require such scrupulous handling! "If there is
anything," Alden had said. Garth brought his hands together.

"There is something," he muttered, "something as dangerous as the death
Alden is manufacturing back there."

He went to bed, but the restlessness of the train returned to him.
Reviewing Alden's exhaustion and the old servant's significant comment,
he wondered half seriously if sleep refused to enter this house. The
place, even for his splendidly controlled emotions, possessed a
character, depressive, unhealthy, calmly malevolent.

He had lost account of time. He had been, perhaps, on the frontier of
sleep, for, as he sprang upright, he could not be all at once sure what
had aroused him. A man's groan, he thought. Suddenly, tearing through
the darkness, came the affirmation--a feminine scream, full of terror,
abruptly ended.

He threw on his clothes, grasped his revolver, dashed down the stairs,
and burst into the living-room. There was no light now beyond the wan
glow of the fire, but it was still sufficient to show him Alden, huddled
more than ever in the chair, and the terror that had quivered through
the cry, persisted now in Alden's face.

His wife, in a dressing gown, knelt at his side, her arm around his
knees. At Garth'