doors on the attic floor. From behind the
first keened once more that ghastly and smothered escape of suffering,
scarcely audible. As Garth stepped towards the door Mrs. Taylor cried
out again:

"Is it safe?"

"Don't go in there unprepared," Nora warned him.

"I want the woman in that room," Garth muttered. "I've heard her and I
know she's there. The case is finished with her arrest."

He took out his revolver, flung open the door, and flashed his light
about the interior of the room. He lowered his hand with the revolver.
The lamp shook a little. There was no one in the room.

"You heard her, too," he said. "Look here."

The others followed him in. The light played on the usual attic chamber,
common to old houses. The plaster was stained and cracked. The single
window at the end was boarded over. An iron bed rested against the wall,
and the customary conglomeration of old furniture cluttered the floor.
But there was no possible hiding place or means of escape except a door
in the side wall, and Garth found that locked, and when he had entered
the other attic room to which it led he found that empty too except for
dust and lumber. Yet, as he searched, that stifled and unearthly moaning
reached him again.

Feeling himself caught in the sway of incomprehensible forces that
mocked him, he sounded the walls and measured until he was convinced the
two rooms could hold no secret place. Meantime the women watched with a
deepening fear.

"Just the same, she's in this house," Garth said. "By every rule of
logic she's in this attic. But I'll go through every nook and cranny.
Nora, you and Mrs. Taylor take the bedrooms. I'll go through the cellar
and try the lower floor again."

On his way down he saw the doctor, whom the policeman had brought,
bending over McDonald.

"The wound is nothing," the doctor said in answer to his question, "but
he's had a slight paralytic stroke from the shock."

"When," Garth asked eagerly, "will he be able to talk?"

"Certainly not for several days," the doctor answered. "I'll carry him
to his room and make him as comfortable as possible."

As Garth went on down, helpless and bewildered, he heard again the old
woman's jibing laugh. It assumed the quality of a threat as he searched
unsuccessfully the cellar and the back part of the house. He met Nora in
the library. Mrs. Taylor and she had found no more than Garth. As they
talked, Reed's tall figure appeared in the doorway. Garth had su