his summer.

His fingers closed more tightly, more feverishly upon the slippery
steel.

Sydney actually thought, or strove to think, him a criminal. What if he
should earn the title? A sound as of the sea beating was in his ears,
and flashes of strange light seem to leap to his vision. What would a
man worth the name do to his enemy?

And he and his enemy were shut up alone together.

He drew himself up straight and steadied himself against the wall,
peering through the blackness in the direction of the statue.

And, as he did so, there seemed to steal into the atmosphere the breath
of another living presence. He could fancy he heard the pulse of another
heart beating near to his. The sensation increased upon him powerfully
until suspicion grew into conviction.

His intention had subtly communicated itself to the thing he could not
see.

He knew it was on guard.

There was no actual sound, no movement, but the atmosphere became
charged by degrees with a deadly, numbing cold, like the breath of frost
in the air. A chill ran through Fane's blood. A sluggish terror began to
steal over him, folding him for the moment in a strange inertia of mind
and of body. A creeping paralysis crawled upon his senses, like the
paralysis of nightmare that envelops the dreamer. He opened his lips to
speak, but they chattered soundlessly. Mechanically his hand clutched
the thin, sharp steel of the dagger.

His enemy--then Sydney.

He would not be a coward. He struggled against the horror that was upon
him.

And still the cold increased, and the personality of Fane's invisible
companion seemed to develop in power. There was a sort of silent
violence in the hidden room, as if a noiseless combat were taking place.
Waves of darkness were stirred into motion; and Fane, as a man is drawn
by the retreating tides of the sea out and away, was drawn from the wall
where he had been crouching.

He stole along the floor, the dagger held in his right hand, his heart
barely beating, his lips white--nearer, nearer to his enemy.

He counted each step, until he was enfolded in the inmost circle of that
deadly frost emanating from the blackness before him.

Then, with a hoarse cry, he lifted his arm and sprang forward and
upward, dashing the dagger down as one plunging it through a human
heart.

The cry died suddenly into silence.

There was the sound of a heavy fall.

It reached the ears of the servants below stairs.

The footman took