At last he inquired politely if he might enter, and said
something about having an appointment with some one in the study. At
which I stepped briskly enough aside, I assure you, for this might
mean--What did you say? Did I close the door? I assuredly did. Was I to
let the whole of ---- Street into the horrors of this house at a moment
when a poor old man--No, I didn't go out myself. Why should I? Was I to
leave a man on the verge of eighty--excuse me, not every man of eighty
is so hale and vigorous as yourself--to enter such a scene alone?
Besides, I had not warned him of the condition of the only other living
occupant of the house."

"Discreet, very. Quite what was to be expected of you, Miss Butterworth.
More than that. You followed him, no doubt, with careful supervision,
down the hall."

"Most certainly! What would you have thought of me if I had not? He was
in a strange house; there was no servant to guide him, he wanted to know
the way to the study, and I politely showed him there."

"Kind of you, madam,--very. It must have been an interesting moment to
you."

"Very interesting! Too interesting! I own that I am not made entirely of
steel, sir, and the shock he received at finding a dead man awaiting
him, instead of a live one, was more or less communicated to me. Yet I
stood my ground."

"Admirable! I could have done no better myself. And so this man who had
an appointment with Mr. Adams was shocked, really shocked, at finding
him lying there under a cross, dead?"

"Yes, there was no doubting that. Shocked, surprised, terrified, and
something more. It is that something more which has proved my
perplexity. I cannot make it out, not even in thinking it over. Was it
the fascination which all horrible sights exert on the morbid, or was it
a sudden realization of some danger he had escaped, or of some
difficulty yet awaiting him? Hard to say, Mr. Gryce, hard to say; but
you may take my word for it that there was more to him in this meeting
than an unexpected stumbling upon a dead man where he expected to find a
live one. Yet he made no sound after that first cry, and hardly any
movement. He just stared at the figure on the floor; then at his face,
which he seemed to devour, at first with curiosity, then with hate, then
with terror, and lastly--how can I express myself?--with a sort of
hellish humor that in another moment might have broken into something
like a laugh, if the bird, which I had failed to observe up