dured
many things.

His mind was very full of strange and troubled thoughts as at last he
came back to Bittermeads, where, leaning with his elbows on the garden
gate, he stood for a long time, watching the dark and silent house and
thinking of that scene of which he had been a spectator when John Clive
and the girl had stood together on the veranda in the light of the gas
from the hall and had bidden each other good night.

"It seems," he mused, "as though the last that was seen of poor Charley
must have been just like that. It was just such a dark night as this
when Simpson saw him. He was standing on that veranda when Simpson
recognized him by the light of the gas behind, and a girl was bidding
him good night--a very pretty girl, too, Simpson said."

Silent and immobile he stood there a long time, not so much now as one
who watched, but rather as if deep in thought, for his head was bent and
supported on his hands and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

"As for this John Clive," he muttered presently, rousing himself. "I
suppose that must be a coincidence, but it's queer, and queer the father
should have died--like that."

He broke off, shuddering slightly, as though at thoughts too awful to be
endured, and pushing open the gate, he walked slowly up the gravel path
towards the house, round which he began to walk, going very slowly
and cautiously and often pausing as if he wished to make as close
examination of the place as the darkness would permit.

More by habit than because he thought there was any need of it, he moved
always with that extreme and wonderful dexterity of quietness he could
assume at will, and as he turned the corner of the building and came
behind it, his quick ear, trained by many an emergency to pick out the
least unusual sound, caught a faint, continued scratching noise, so
faint and low it might well have passed unnoticed.

All at once he understood and realized that some one quite close at
hand was stealthily cutting out the glass from one of the panes of a
ground-floor window.

CHAPTER IV. A WOMAN WEEPS

Cautiously he glided nearer, moving as noiselessly as any shadow,
seeming indeed but one shadow the more in the heavy surrounding
darkness.

The persistent scratching noise continued, and Dunn was now so close he
could have put out his hand and touched the shoulder of the man who was
causing it and who still, intent and busy, had not the least idea of the
other's proximity.