s, who sat
in the kitchen, still shaken by the discovery at the grave, said he
hadn't moved for the last half hour, was entirely sure no one had come
through from the front part of the house.

They returned to the hall and stood in a half circle about the empty
chair, where a little while ago Silas Blackburn had cowered, mouthing
snatches of his fear--"I'm not dead! I tell you I'm not dead! They can't
make me go back--"

The echoes of that fear still shocked their ears.

There was a hypnotic power about the vacancy as there had been about the
emptiness in the burial ground. Paredes spoke gropingly.

"What would we find," he whispered, "if we went to the cemetery and
looked again in the coffin?"

"Why should he have come back at all?" Groom mused.

Robinson opened the front door.

"You know he might have gone this way."

But already the snow had obliterated the signs of their own passage in
and out. It showed no fresh marks.

"Silas Blackburn has not gone that way in the body," Doctor Groom
rumbled.

The storm was more violent. It discouraged the idea of examining the
graveyard again before morning.

Robinson glanced at his watch. He led Bobby and the detective to
the library.

"Then try your scheme if you want," he said, "but understand I assume no
responsibility. Honestly, I doubt if it amounts to anything. You'll shout
out if you are attacked, or the moment you suspect any real cause for
fear. Rawlins will be in the corridor, and I'll be in the library or
wandering about the house--always within call. Rawlins will guard the
broken door, but be sure and lock the other one."

The two officers went upstairs with Bobby. Graham followed.

"You understand," Robinson said. "I'd rather Paredes and the doctor
didn't suspect what you are going to do. Change your mind before it's too
late, if you want."

Bobby walked on without replying.

"You can't dissuade him," Graham said, "because of what will happen
to-morrow unless the truth is discovered to-night."

In the upper hall they found Katherine waiting. Her endeavours were
hard to face.

"You shan't go there for me, Bobby," she said.

"Isn't it clear I must go in my own service?" he said, trying to smile.

He wouldn't speak to her again. He wouldn't look at her. Her anxiety and
the affection in her eyes weakened him, and he needed all his strength,
for at the entrance of the dark, narrow corridor the fear met him.

Rawlins brought a candle and guided