ited me, watching the square of light, and after exchanging
word with him, I again stepped forth.

When I was half way across the intervening space of garden, treading
with infinite precaution, a dark shadow obscured the window, which a
second later was thrown open. Crouching hastily behind a boxwood hedge,
I watched St. Auban--for I guessed that he it was--as he leaned out and
gazed skywards.

For a little while he remained there, then he withdrew, leaving the
casement open, and presently I caught the grating of a chair on the
parquet floor within. If ever the gods favoured mortal, they favoured me
at that moment.

Stealthily as a cat I sprang towards the terrace, the steps to which I
climbed on hands and knees. Stooping, I sped silently across it until I
had gained the flower-bed immediately below the window that had drawn
me to it. Crouching there--for did I stand upright my chin would be on a
level with the sill--I paused to listen for some moments. The only sound
I caught was a rustle, as of paper. Emboldened, I took a deep breath,
and standing up I gazed straight into the chamber.

By the light of four tapers in heavy silver sconces, I beheld St. Auban
seated at a table littered with parchments, over which he was intently
poring. His back was towards me, and his long black hair hung straight
upon his shoulders. On the table, amid the papers, lay his golden wig
and black mask, and on the floor in the centre of the room, his back and
breast of blackened steel and his sword.

It needed but little shrewdness to guess those parchments before him
to be legal documents touching the Canaples estates, and his occupation
that of casting up exactly what profit he would reap from his infamous
work of betrayal.

So intent was the hound upon his calculations that my cautious movements
passed unheeded by him as I got astride of the window ledge. It was only
when I swung my right leg into the room that he turned his head, but
before his eyes reached me I was standing upright and motionless within
the chamber.

I have seen fear of many sorts writ large upon the faces of men of many
conditions--from the awe that blanches the cheek of the boy soldier when
first he hears the cannon thundering to the terror that glazes the eye
of the vanquished swordsman who at every moment expects the deadly point
in his heart. But never had I gazed upon a countenance filled with such
abject ghastly terror as that which came over St. Auban's