rth her own strength against it.

"Listen!" she said, and plucked him by the sleeve. Constans looked at
her.

"I am going to trust you," she went on, quickly. "The time may come when
I can no longer remain in safety at Arcadia House. When it does I will
let you know by displaying a white signal in the western window of the
cupola. Then you will come?"

"I will come," he answered, albeit a little slowly and heavily as one
who seeks to find himself.

Esmay opened the door and looked out. It was almost dark, and after
listening a moment she seemed satisfied.

"You have a ladder? Very well, you need not be afraid of the dogs, for
when you see the signal I will arrange that they are kept in leash. And
now you had better go; they are surely unchained by this time, and any
moment may bring them ranging about. Good-bye, and remember your
promise."

They walked along together until they came to the plantation of
spruce-trees. Constans could see that his ladder was still in place on
the wall; his path of retreat was open. He put out his hand, and her
slim, cool palm rested for a moment in his. She nodded, smiled, and left
him, going directly towards the house.

Moved by an inexplicable impulse, Constans followed for a short
distance, keeping under the shelter of the trees. Then suddenly to him,
straining his eyes through the dusk, there appeared a second figure,
that of a woman, clothed wholly in white, hovering close upon the
retreating steps of the girl.

Constans felt his knees loosen under him, the ancient superstitions
being still strong in his blood for all of his studies and new-found
philosophy.

"It is her sister Nanna," he muttered to himself, and knew that he lied
in saying it. The old wives' tales, at which he had shuddered in
boyhood, came crowding back upon him--grisly legends of vampire shapes
and of the phantoms, invariably feminine in form, who were said to
inhabit ruined places. A panic terror seized him as he watched the
apparition gliding so swiftly and noiselessly upon the unconscious girl.
Yet he continued to run forward, stumbling and slipping on the
treacherous foothold of melting snow.

Esmay had reached a side door of the main building; quite naturally she
entered and closed the door behind her, while the white-robed figure,
after hesitating a moment, walked to a far corner of the house and
disappeared. Out of the indefinite distance came the deep-throated bay
of a hound. Constans turned an