ompanion after each elaborate pace.

He closed the door noiselessly. The house door was standing open, and
he went out beyond the porch, and stood where the monkshood rose at
the corner of the garden bed. From this point he could see the stranger
through the open window, still and dim, sitting head on hand. He had not
moved.

A number of children going along the road stopped and regarded the
artist curiously. A boatman exchanged civilities with him. He felt
that possibly his circumspect attitude and position seemed peculiar and
unaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipe
and pouch from his pocket, filled the pipe slowly.

"I wonder,"... he said, with a scarcely perceptible loss of complacency.
"At any rate we must give him a chance." He struck a match in the virile
way, and proceeded to light his pipe.

Presently he heard his landlady behind him, coming with his lamp lit
from the kitchen. He turned, gesticulating with his pipe, and stopped
her at the door of his sitting-room. He had some difficulty in
explaining the situation in whispers, for she did not know he had a
visitor. She retreated again with the lamp, still a little mystified to
judge from her manner, and he resumed his hovering at the corner of the
porch, flushed and less at his ease.

Long after he had smoked out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad,
his curiosity dominated his complex hesitations, and he stole back into
his darkling sitting-room. He paused in the doorway. The stranger
was still in the same attitude, dark against the window. Save for the
singing of some sailors aboard one of the little slate-carrying ships
in the harbour, the evening was very still. Outside, the spikes of
monkshood and delphinium stood erect and motionless against the shadow
of the hillside. Something flashed into Isbister's mind; he started, and
leaning over the table, listened. An unpleasant suspicion grew stronger;
became conviction. Astonishment seized him and became--dread!

No sound of breathing came from the seated figure!

He crept slowly and noiselessly round the table, pausing twice to
listen. At last he could lay his hand on the back of the armchair. He
bent down until the two heads were ear to ear.

Then he bent still lower to look up at his visitor's face. He started
violently and uttered an exclamation. The eyes were void spaces of
white.

He looked again and saw that they were open and with the pupils rolled
under the l