y do you ask that?" he said. "Have
you heard the story of the Grange?"

"Never heard of the place in my life," I answered cheerily. "Till you
mentioned it to-night, my dear fellow, I hadn't the remotest idea that
you still owned property in England."

"The Grange is shut up," said Sir Jeremy, "and has been for twenty
years. But I keep a man there--Horrod--he was butler in my father's time
and before. If you care to go, I'll write him that you're coming. And,
since you are taking your own fate in your hands, the fifteenth of
November is the day."

At that moment Lady Buggam and Clara and the other girls came trooping
out on the verandah, and the whole thing passed clean out of my mind.
Nor did I think of it again until I was back in London. Then, by one of
those strange coincidences or premonitions--call it what you will--it
suddenly occurred to me one morning that it was the fifteenth of
November. Whether Sir Jeremy had written to Horrod or not, I did not
know. But none the less nightfall found me, as I have described,
knocking at the door of Buggam Grange.

The sound of the knocker had scarcely ceased to echo when I heard the
shuffling of feet within, and the sound of chains and bolts being
withdrawn. The door opened. A man stood before me holding a lighted
candle which he shaded with his hand. His faded black clothes, once
apparently a butler's dress, his white hair and advanced age left me in
no doubt that he was Horrod of whom Sir Jeremy had spoken.

Without a word he motioned me to come in, and, still without speech, he
helped me to remove my wet outer garments, and then beckoned me into a
great room, evidently the dining-room of the Grange.

I am not in any degree a nervous man by temperament, as I think I
remarked before, and yet there was something in the vastness of the
wainscoted room, lighted only by a single candle, and in the silence of
the empty house, and still more in the appearance of my speechless
attendant, which gave me a feeling of distinct uneasiness. As Horrod
moved to and fro I took occasion to scrutinize his face more narrowly. I
have seldom seen features more calculated to inspire a nervous dread.
The pallor of his face and the whiteness of his hair (the man was at
least seventy), and still more the peculiar furtiveness of his eyes,
seemed to mark him as one who lived under a great terror. He moved with
a noiseless step and at times he turned his head to glance in the dark
corners of the