cked on the wall and woke father. There was nothing; so I
said it was the howling of the dog that had frightened me."

"How could anyone get into his room?"

"I cannot imagine. But I am not sure it was a man."

"Miss Eltham, you alarm me. What do you suspect?"

"You must think me hysterical and silly, but whilst father and I have
been away from Redmoat perhaps the usual precautions have been
neglected. Is there any creature, any large creature, which could
climb up the wall to the window? Do you know of anything with a long,
thin body?"

For a moment I offered no reply, studying the girl's pretty face, her
eager, blue-gray eyes widely opened and fixed upon mine. She was not
of the neurotic type, with her clear complexion and sun-kissed neck;
her arms, healthily toned by exposure to the country airs, were rounded
and firm, and she had the agile shape of a young Diana with none of the
anaemic languor which breeds morbid dreams. She was frightened; yes,
who would not have been? But the mere idea of this thing which she
believed to be in Redmoat, without the apparition of the green eyes,
must have prostrated a victim of "nerves."

"Have you seen such a creature, Miss Eltham?"

She hesitated again, glancing down and pressing her finger-tips
together.

"As father awoke and called out to know why I knocked, I glanced from
my window. The moonlight threw half the lawn into shadow, and just
disappearing in this shadow was something--something of a brown color,
marked with sections!"

"What size and shape?"

"It moved so quickly I could form no idea of its shape; but I saw quite
six feet of it flash across the grass!"

"Did you hear anything?"

"A swishing sound in the shrubbery, then nothing more."

She met my eyes expectantly. Her confidence in my powers of
understanding and sympathy was gratifying, though I knew that I but
occupied the position of a father-confessor.

"Have you any idea," I said, "how it came about that you awoke in the
train yesterday whilst your father did not?"

"We had coffee at a refreshment-room; it must have been drugged in some
way. I scarcely tasted mine, the flavor was so awful; but father is an
old traveler and drank the whole of his cupful!"

Mr. Eltham's voice called from below.

"Dr. Petrie," said the girl quickly, "what do you think they want to do
to him?"

"Ah!" I replied, "I wish I knew that."

"Will you think over what I have told you? For I do assure you