ions of men reach their
boiling-point! I expected to see the old man try that door, even to
double bolt it as in the years gone by. But he merely threw a look that
way and proceeded on down the three or four steps which led into the
species of basement where he had chosen to fix his office. In another
moment that dim and dismal room broke upon my view under the vague light
of the small and poorly-trimmed lamp he carried. I saw again its musty
walls covered with books, where there were shelves laden with bottles
and a loose array of miscellaneous objects I had often handled but out
of which I never could make any meaning. I recognized it all and
detected but few changes. But these were startling ones. The old lounge
standing under the two barred windows which I had often likened in my
own mind to those of a jail, had been recovered; and lying on the table,
which I had always regarded with a mixture of awe and apprehension, I
perceived something which I had never seen there before: a Bible, with
its edges worn and its leaves rumpled as if often and eagerly handled.

I was so struck by this last discovery that I stopped, staring, in the
doorway, looking from the sacred volume to his worn but vigorous figure
drawn up in the middle of the room, with the lamp still in his hand and
his small but brilliant eyes fixed upon mine with a certain ironical
glitter in them, which gave me my first distrust of the part I had come
there to play.

"We will waste no words," said he, setting down the lamp, and seizing
with his disengaged hand the long locks of his flowing beard. "In what
respect are you a messenger from Mrs. Ocumpaugh, and what makes you
think I have her child in this house?"

I found it easier to answer the last question first.

"I know the child is here," I replied, "because my partner saw you bring
her in. I have gone into the detective business since leaving you."

"Ah!"

There was an astonishing edge to his smile and I felt that I should have
to make the most of that old discovery of mine, if I were to hold my own
with this man.

"And may I ask," he coldly continued, "how you have succeeded in
connecting me with this young child's disappearance?"

"It's straight as a string," I retorted. "You threatened the child to
its face in the hearing of its nurse some two weeks ago, on a certain
bridge where you stopped them. You even set the day when the little
Gwendolen should pass from luxury to poverty." Here I cast