and lifted her hand as if to open it, when
with a wild and terrified gesture she started back, covering her
face with her hands, and before he knew it, had actually fled in the
direction from which she had come. A little startled, Thompson advanced
and looked through the gate before him to see if possible what had
alarmed her, when to his great surprise, he beheld the pale face of the
master of the house, Mr. Blake himself, looking through the bars from
the other side of the gate. He in his turn started back and before he
could recover himself, Mr. Blake had disappeared. He says he tried the
gate after that, but found it locked."

"Thompson tells you this story, does he?"

"Yes."

"Well," said I, "it's a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have
got to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing
it around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are
concerned." And I departed to hunt up Thompson.

But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl
appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a shawl.
My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety into the
private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and discovered--well, such
facts as these:

That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to domestic
affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except upon occasions
of great political importance, when he was always to be found on
the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the ordinary
observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks, fine position,
and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only manifested a distaste
for it, but even went so far as to refuse to participate in the social
dinners of his most intimate friends; the only table to which he would
sit down being that of some public caterer, where he was sure of finding
none but his political associates assembled.

To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by
the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place of
amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a
man, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, and
marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was
if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their
eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some marked
peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was,