The storm of the preceding night had got into his
bones.

"I don't know. There's something uncanny about this silence. She ought to
be here; but I'm afraid she isn't." Sweetwater rapped again, this time
with decided vehemence.

Suddenly in one of the uncurtained windows a face appeared. They saw it,
and both drew a deep breath. The eyes were looking their way, but they
were like ghost's eyes. Without sight or speculation in them, they simply
looked; then the face slowly withdrew, growing ghastlier every minute,
and the window stared on, but the woman was gone. Yet the door did not
open.

"I hate to use force," objected Sweetwater.

Before answering, Mr. Gryce stepped to one side and cast a glance around
the corner of the house in the direction of the gorge opening in the
rear.

"There is something like a yard at the back," he announced, "but the
fence which shut it in is so high and so protected by means of prickly
underbrush that you would have difficulty in climbing it."

"Just so at this end," called out Sweetwater after a short run to the
left. "If we get in at all," he remarked on coming back, "it will have to
be by the window you see there with one pane knocked out."

"I don't like that; I don't like any of it. But we can't stay out here
any longer. The looks of the woman herself forbid it. We sha'n't forget
that hollow stare."

"They said the woman who lived here was dead."

"Yes. It's a bad business, Sweetwater. Rap once more, and then if she
doesn't come, throw up the window and climb in."

Sweetwater did as he was bid, and meeting with no more response than
before, thrust his hand through the hole made by the broken pane; and
finding the window had been left unlocked, he pushed it up and entered.
In another moment he appeared at the front door, where Mr. Gryce joined
him, and together they took their first look at the small but
surprisingly well-furnished interior.

The hall in which they stood was without staircase and had many of the
appointments of a room. Doors opened here and there along its length, and
in the rear they saw a closed one evidently leading into the yard. There
was no one within sight. One would have said that with the death and
carrying out of the owner of this little dwelling, all life had departed
from it. Yet these two men knew that life was there; and raising his
voice, Mr. Gryce called out in the least alarming way possible:

"Madame Duclos!" following this utterance of