same way that I held
you the night our boy was born. And I 'll help you with this. You dig
the hole and put half the lime in there--don't put it all. We 'll need
the rest to put on top of him. You 'll have it done in about two
hours. There 's something else needed--some acid that I 've got to
get. It 'll make it all the quicker. I 'll be back, Honey. Kiss me."

Fairchild, seeking to still the horror-laden quiver of his body, heard
the sound of a kiss and then the clatter of a man's heavy shoes on the
stairs, accompanied by a slight clink from below. He knew that
sound,--the scraping of the steel of a spade against the earth as it
was dragged into use. A moment more and Rodaine, mumbling to himself,
passed out the door. But the woman did not come upstairs. Fairchild
knew why: her crazed mind was following the instructions of the man who
knew how to lead the lunatic intellect into the channels he desired;
she was digging, digging a grave for some one, a grave to be lined with
quicklime!

Now she was talking again and chanting, but Fairchild did not attempt
to determine the meaning of it all. Upstairs was some one who had been
found by this woman in an unconscious state and evidently kept in that
condition through the potations of the ugly poison-laden drugs she
brewed,--some one who now was doomed to die and to lie in a quicklime
grave! Carefully Fairchild gained his feet; then, as silently as
possible, he made for the rickety stairs, stopping now and again to
listen for discovery from below. But it did not come; the insane woman
was chanting louder than ever now. Fairchild went on.

He felt his way up the remaining stairs, a rat scampering before him;
he sneaked along the wall, hands extended, groping for that broken
door, finally to find it. Cautiously he peered within, striving in
vain to pierce the darkness. At last, listening intently for the
singing from below, he drew a match from his pocket and scratched it
noiselessly on his trousers. Then, holding it high above his head, he
looked toward the bed--and stared in horror!

A blood-encrusted face showed on the slipless pillow, while across the
forehead was a jagged, red, untended wound. The mouth was open, the
breathing was heavy and labored. The form was quite still, the eyes
closed. And the face was that of Harry!

CHAPTER XXII

So this explained, after a fashion, Harry's disappearance. This
revealed why the search through the m