eps along the avenue, and my fear whispered that
they were not those of Bristol but of one who had murdered him, and
who came guilefully, to murder me!

I snatched the revolver from my pocket and crossed the darkened room.
Just to the right of one of the French windows I stood looking out
across the loggia to the end of the avenue. The night was a bright
one, and the room was flooded with a reflected mystic light, but
outside the moon paved the avenue with pearl, and through the trees
I saw a figure approaching.

Was it Bristol? It had his build, it had his gait; but my fears
remained. Then the figure crossed the patch of shrubbery and stepped
on to the loggia.

"Mr. Cavanagh!"

I laughed dryly at my own cowardice, but my heart was still beating
abnormally.

"Here I am, Bristol, in a ghastly funk!"

"I don't wonder! They may be on us any time now. All's well at
the gate, but Morris says he heard, or thought he heard something
at the side of the chapel opposite, a while ago."

"Wind in the bushes?"

"It may have been; but he says there was no breeze at the time."

We resumed our seats.

"Bristol," I said, "now that the danger grows imminent, doesn't it
seem to you foolhardy for us thus to expose ourselves?"

"Perhaps it is," he agreed; "but how otherwise are we likely to
learn what happened to Marden and West?"

"The enemy may adopt different measures to-night."

"I think not. Our dispositions are the same, and I credit them with
cunning enough to know it. At the same time I credit ourselves with
having kept the existence of the steel traps completely secret. They
will assume (so I've reasoned) that we intend to rely entirely upon
our superior vigilance, therefore they will try the same game as last
night."

Silence fell.

The moon rays, creeping around from the right of the avenue, crossing
the shrubbery and encroaching upon the low wall of the loggia, now
flooded its floor. Against the silvern light, Bristol appeared to
me in black silhouette. The breeze, too, seemed now to blow from a
slightly different direction. It came through the windows on my
right, beyond which lay the unkempt bushes which extended on that
side to the wall of the grounds.

So we sat, until the moonlight poured fully in upon Bristol's back.
So we sat when the clock chimed the hour of one.

Bristol arose and once more went out to the gate. He had arranged
to visit Morris's post every half-hour. Again I experien