evening in the big dining-room
across the hall from the parlor and Varr's study. The walls of the
dining-room were plentifully equipped with sconces bearing lamps, but
Simon, in some moment of petty economy, had once decreed that these
should be lighted only on formal occasions. The only illumination this
evening came from the candles on the table, which stood in the center
of the room, and beyond the area reached by their rays the shadows
deepened into impenetrability. At one end of the room a narrow slit of
light at top and bottom marked the position of the swinging door which
gave access to the pantry.

From this point to the sideboard, and thence to the table, and back
again, moved Bates on noiseless feet as he busied himself with the
service of the meal. In his black clothes, the instant he slipped out
of the magic lighted circle he was swallowed completely by the shadows,
to reappear presently with spectral abruptness in another segment of
activity. Several times he startled Simon by silently materializing
from the void at his elbow, and on each occasion the tanner found some
excuse to vent his anger in a curt rebuke to the servant.

The four who dined were of diametrically opposed temperaments. Across
the table from Varr sat his wife, Lucy, a pale, gentle soul who under
happier circumstances might have retained more of her youthful
freshness and beauty than she had. She appeared washed-out and
bloodless, so that her sister had remarked to herself that living with
Simon Varr must be not unlike associating permanently with a vampire.
His own abundant vitality sapped the life-juice from those about him,
leaving the desiccated bodies an easy prey to his appetite for
dominance.

At Varr's left was his son, Copley, a young man who had come of age
that summer. He was tall and straight, aquiline of feature, brown-eyed
and with dark chestnut hair that persisted, to his annoyance, in a
tendency to curl. He was a likable chap, popular with young and old of
both sexes. His good looks came from his mother, together with the
equable disposition that promised to be his as he grew older and
learned better to control his emotions. When a youngster he had been
willful at times and prone to flashes of fiery temper, a heritage,
beyond doubt, from his father's chronic irascibility, but the
discipline of boarding-school and college had taught him to restrain at
least its outward manifestations. From Simon, too, he had i