nd and appeal. Charles
promptly apologizes, giving assurances that he will at once heed her
warning. In persuasive tones he asks:

"May I see you again?"

The answer comes:

"Possibly. I must decide that."

Without further word, this visitor passes out.

Making sudden preparations, Charles calls a cab and is soon at the
station. In a few minutes more he is on the way to Northfield.

The substance and manner of this warning were mysteriously suggestive.
Doubtless the veiled disguise was to avoid identification or some
personal complications. This woman must know something about the Thames
tragedy. There is relation between her strange visit and Paul Lanier's
disappearance. Paul is surely in the neighborhood of Northfield.

Charles is convinced that this visitor is one of the interesting
strangers he so often has seen in the hotel dining-room. He recalls
reported former mysterious shadowings at Calcutta and along the Thames.
That spying upon the Laniers at the cellar room comes vividly to mind.
How strange those declamatory utterances in hearing of his father and
Esther, along shore of the lake. Northfield loved ones must be in
imminent danger to prompt such warning.

This brooding mystery grows fearfully fascinating. It nerves Charles to
intense resolve. He longs for opportunity to strike some decisive blow.
Is there time to protect those at home from impending peril? The urgent
warning seemed to imply that dispatch is essential and may yet avail.

The thundering train moves too slowly. It seems ages before his
destination is reached. Rushing from the car, Charles soon procures a
horse, and digging the spurs into sides of the animal, gallops homeward.

At the entrance to Northfield mansion grounds his horse shies at a
prostrate body just inside the gate.

Dismounting, Charles is startled at an upturned bloody face. He
recognizes one of the household servants. The body is yet warm.

Charles is soon upon the porch. The door is locked. Passing around
beneath his father's room windows, he finds these closed. Through lace
drapings of Esther's room, he sees glimmer of a light. All outside doors
are securely fastened. He is completing circuit of the house, when a
rope is seen dangling from a second-story window. Grasping this, Charles
pulls hard. It is attached to some immovable object in the upper
hallway. He pauses, puzzled, then says: "An exit has been planned, but
how was the entrance effected? Some one passed