pecially as
she knows and trusts him.

When the carriage stopped it was already dark and I could distinguish
little of the house I entered, save that it was large and old and did
not look like an establishment where a man servant would be likely to
be kept.

"Is Mrs. Warner here?" I asked of the man who was slowly getting down
from the box.

"Yes, sir," he answered quickly; and I was about to ring the bell
before me, when the door opened and a young German girl, courtesying
slightly, welcomed me in, saying:

"Mrs. Warner is up-stairs, sir; in the front room, if you please."

Not doubting her, but greatly astonished at the barren aspect of the
place I was in, I stumbled up the faintly lighted stairs before me and
entered the great front room. It was empty, but through an open door
at the other end I heard a voice saying: "He has come, madam"; and
anxious to see my patient, whose presence in this desolate house I
found it harder and harder to understand, I stepped into the room
where she presumably lay.

Alas! for my temerity in doing so; for no sooner had I crossed the
threshold than the door by which I had entered closed with a click
unlike any I had ever heard before, and when I turned to see what it
meant, another click came from the opposite side of the room, and I
perceived, with a benumbed sense of wonder, that the one person whose
somewhat shadowy figure I had encountered on entering had vanished
from the place, and that I was shut up alone in a room without visible
means of egress.

This was startling, and hard to believe at first, but after I had
tried the door by which I had entered and found it securely locked,
and then bounding to the other side of the room, tried the opposite
one with the same result, I could not but acknowledge I was caught.
What did it mean? Caught, and I was in haste, mad haste. Filling the
room with my cries, I shouted for help and a quick release, but my
efforts were naturally fruitless, and after exhausting myself in vain
I stood still and surveyed, with what equanimity was left me, the
appearance of the dreary place in which I had thus suddenly become
entrapped.

CHAPTER II.

It was a small square room, and I shall not soon forget with what a
foreboding shudder I observed that its four blank walls were literally
unbroken by a single window, for this told me that I was in no
communication with the street, and that it would be impossible for me
to summon help from the ou