s, seemed thoroughly justified. Yet, granted that,
who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had they buried to vanish
completely? Who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had drowsed without
food for three days in the house at Smithtown?

The old man stretched his shaking hands to Bobby and Katherine.

"Don't let them bury me again. They never buried me. I've not been dead!
I tell you I've not been dead!" He mouthed horribly. "I'm alive! Can't
you see I'm alive?"

He broke down and covered his face. Jenkins sank on the heap of earth.

"I saw you, Mr. Silas, in that box. And I saw you on the bed. Miss
Katherine and I found you. We had to break the door. You looked so
peaceful we thought you were asleep. But when we touched you you
were cold."

"No, no, no," Blackburn grimaced. "I wasn't cold. I couldn't have been."

"There's no question," Bobby said hoarsely.

"No question," Robinson repeated.

Katherine shrank from her uncle as he had shrunk from her in the library
the night of the murder.

"What do you make of it?" the district attorney asked Rawlins.

The detective, who had remained crouched at the side of the grave, arose,
brushing the dirt from his hands, shaking his head.

"What is one to make of it, sir?"

Paredes spoke softly to Graham.

"The Cedars wants to be left alone to the dead. We would all be better
away from it."

"You won't go yet awhile," Robinson said gruffly. "Don't forget you're
still under bond."

The detail no longer seemed of importance to Bobby. The mystery,
centreing in the empty grave, was apparently inexplicable. He experienced
a great pity for his grandfather; and, recalling that strengthening
moment with Katherine, he made up his mind that there was only one course
for him. It might be dangerous in itself, yet, on the other hand, he
couldn't go to Katherine while his share in the mystery of the Cedars
remained so darkly shadowed. He had no right to withhold anything, and he
wouldn't ask Graham's advice. He had stepped all at once into the mastery
of his own destiny. He would tell Robinson, therefore, everything he
knew, from the party with Maria and Paredes in New York, through his
unconscious wanderings around the house on the night of the first murder,
to the moment when Graham had stopped his somnambulistic excursion down
the stairs.

Robinson turned his light away from the grave.

"There's nothing more to do here. Let us go back."

The little party straggled thr