and foot rugs, which would have satisfied a Sybarite of the
first water. Beside the sofa stood a hookah, with all appliances in the
Oriental fashion; and half a dozen long cherry-wood pipes neatly
arranged above the mantelpiece showed that Mr. Steadman's uncle was a
smoker of a luxurious type.

In the centre of the room stood a large writing table, with a case of
pigeon-holes at the back, a table which would not have disgraced a Prime
Minister's study. A pair of wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks,
lighted this table, which was littered with papers, in a wild confusion
that too plainly indicated the condition of the owner's mind. The oak
floor was covered with Persian prayer rugs, old and faded, but of the
richest quality. The window curtains were dark red velvet; and through
an open doorway Mary and her husband saw a corresponding luxury in the
arrangements of the adjoining bedroom.

The whole thing seemed wild and strange as a fairy tale. The weird and
wizened old man, grinning and nodding his head at them. The handsome
room, rich with dark, subdued colour, in the dim light of four wax
candles, two on the table, two on the mantelpiece. The perfume of
stephanotis and tea-roses, blended faintly with the all-pervading odour
of latakia and Turkish attar. All was alike strange, bearing in mind
that this old man was a recipient of Lady Maulevrier's charity, a
hanger-on upon a confidential servant, who might be supposed to be
generously treated if he had the run of his teeth and the shelter of a
decent garret. Verily, there was something regal in such hospitality as
this, accorded to a pauper lunatic.

Where was Steadman, the alert, the watchful, all this time? Mary
wondered. They had met no one. The house was as mute as if it were under
the spell of a magician. It was like that awful chamber in the Arabian
story, where the young man found the magic horse, and started on his
fatal journey. Mary felt as if here, too, there, must be peril; here,
too, fate was working.

The old man went to the writing table, pushed aside the papers, and then
stooped down and turned a mysterious handle or winch under the
knee-hole, and the writing-desk moved slowly on one side, while the
pigeon-holes sank, and a deep well full of secret drawers was laid open.

From one of these secret drawers the old man took a bunch of keys,
nodding, chuckling, muttering to himself as he groped for them with
tremulous hand.

'Steadman is uncommonly