ng more direct and tangible than the immaterial
efflux of the soul, though that too was not wanting: he saw the signal
kerchief being placed outside the window, that otherwise, reaching home
too early, he had missed.

"It is my last chance, if I leave to-morrow," he thought. "I shall
satisfy myself as to the nocturnal visitor, the magic flautist, and the
bewildering Annapla--and probably find the mystery as simple as the egg
in the conjurer's bottle when all's ended!"

That night he yawned behind his hand at supper in the midst of his
host's account of his interview with Petullo the Writer, who had
promised to secure lodging for Count Victor in a day or two, and the
Baron showed no disinclination to conclude their somewhat dull sederunt
and consent to an early retirement.

"I have something pressing to do before I go to bed myself," he said,
restoring by that simple confession some of Count Victor's first
suspicions. They were to be confirmed before an hour was past.

He went up to his room and weighed his duty to himself and to some
unshaped rules of courtesy and conduct that he had inherited from a
house more renowned for its sense of ceremonial honour, perhaps, than
for commoner virtues. His instinct as a stranger in a most remarkable
dwelling, creeping with mystery and with numberless evidences of
things sinister and perhaps malevolent, told him it was fair to make a
reconnaissance, even if no more was to be discovered than a servant's
sordid amours. On the other hand, he could not deny to himself that
there was what the Baronne de Chenier would have called the little Lyons
shopkeeper in the suspicions he had against his host, and in the steps
he proposed to take to satisfy his curiosity. He might have debated
the situation with himself till midnight, or as long as Mungo's candles
lasted him, had not a shuffling and cautious step upon the stair
suggested that some one was climbing to the unused chambers above.
Putting punctilio in his pocket, he threw open his door, and had before
him a much-perplexed Baron of Doom, wrapped from neck to heel in a great
plaid of sombre tartan and carrying a candle!

Doom stammered an inaudible excuse.

"Pardon!" said Count Victor, ironically in spite of himself, as he saw
his host's abashed countenance. "I fear I intrude on a masquerade. Pray,
do not mind me. It was that I thought the upper flat uninhabited, and no
one awake but myself."

"You have me somewhat at a disadvanta