rary door, he was half-way to the foot, and I
was just remarking to myself upon the unpliability of his figure and the
awkwardness of his carriage, as seen from my present standpoint, when
suddenly I saw him stop, clutch the banister at his side, and hang there
with a startled, deathly expression upon his half-turned countenance,
which fixed me for an instant where I was in breathless astonishment,
and then caused me to rush down to his side, catch him by the arm, and
cry:

"What is it? what is the matter?"

But, thrusting out his hand, he pushed me upwards. "Go back!" he
whispered, in a voice shaking with in-tensest emotion, "go back." And
catching me by the arm, he literally pulled me up the stairs. Arrived
at the top, he loosened his grasp, and leaning, quivering from head to
foot, over the banisters, glared below.

"Who is that?" he cried. "Who is that man? What is his name?"

Startled in my turn, I bent beside him, and saw Henry Clavering come out
of the reception room and cross the hall.

"That is Mr. Clavering," I whispered, with all the self-possession I
could muster; "do you know him?"

Mr. Harwell fell back against the opposite wall. "Clavering, Clavering,"
he murmured with quaking lips; then, suddenly bounding forward, clutched
the railing before him, and fixing me with his eyes, from which all the
stoic calmness had gone down forever in flame and frenzy, gurgled into
my ear: "You want to know who the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is, do
you? Look there, then: that is the man, Clavering!" And with a leap, he
bounded from my side, and, swaying like a drunken man, disappeared from
my gaze in the hall above.

My first impulse was to follow him. Rushing upstairs, I knocked at the
door of his room, but no response came to my summons. I then called
his name in the hall, but without avail; he was determined not to show
himself. Resolved that he should not thus escape me, I returned to the
library, and wrote him a short note, in which I asked for an explanation
of his tremendous accusation, saying I would be in my rooms the next
evening at six, when I should expect to see him. This done I descended
to rejoin Mary.

But the evening was destined to be full of disappointments. She had
retired to her room while I was in the library, and I lost the interview
from which I expected so much. "The woman is slippery as an eel," I
inwardly commented, pacing the hall in my chagrin. "Wrapped in mystery,
she expects me to