ws.

These were closed and bolted, and she lay with hands outstretched in
the alcove which they formed. I bent over her. Nayland Smith was at
my elbow.

"Get my bag" I said. "She has swooned. It is nothing serious."

Her father, pale and wide-eyed, hovered about me, muttering
incoherently; but I managed to reassure him; and his gratitude when, I
having administered a simple restorative, the girl sighed shudderingly
and opened her eyes, was quite pathetic.

I would permit no questioning at that time, and on her father's arm she
retired to her own rooms.

It was some fifteen minutes later that her message was brought to me.
I followed the maid to a quaint little octagonal apartment, and Greba
Eltham stood before me, the candlelight caressing the soft curves of
her face and gleaming in the meshes of her rich brown hair.

When she had answered my first question she hesitated in pretty
confusion.

"We are anxious to know what alarmed you, Miss Eltham."

She bit her lip and glanced with apprehension towards the window.

"I am almost afraid to tell father," she began rapidly. "He will think
me imaginative, but you have been so kind. It was two green eyes! Oh!
Dr. Petrie, they looked up at me from the steps leading to the lawn.
And they shone like the eyes of a cat."

The words thrilled me strangely.

"Are you sure it was not a cat, Miss Eltham?"

"The eyes were too large, Dr. Petrie. There was something dreadful,
most dreadful, in their appearance. I feel foolish and silly for
having fainted, twice in two days! But the suspense is telling upon
me, I suppose. Father thinks"--she was becoming charmingly
confidential, as a woman often will with a tactful physician--"that
shut up here we are safe from--whatever threatens us." I noted, with
concern, a repetition of the nervous shudder. "But since our return
someone else has been in Redmoat!"

"Whatever do you mean, Miss Eltham?"

"Oh! I don't quite know what I do mean, Dr. Petrie. What does it ALL
mean? Vernon has been explaining to me that some awful Chinaman is
seeking the life of Mr. Nayland Smith. But if the same man wants to
kill my father, why has he not done so?"

"I am afraid you puzzle me."

"Of course, I must do so. But--the man in the train. He could have
killed us both quite easily! And--last night someone was in father's
room."

"In his room!"

"I could not sleep, and I heard something moving. My room is the next
one. I kno