neighbourhood when it begins to grow dark, you may see the children
hurry past it in silence, now and then glancing back in dread, lest
something should have opened the never-opened door, and be stealing
after them. They call that something The Red Etin,--only this ogre was
black, I am sorry to say; red was the proper colour for him."

"It is a horrible story!" said Donal.

"I want you to go to the house for me: you do not mind going, do you?"

"Not in the least," answered Donal.

"I want you to search a certain bureau there for some papers.--By the
way, have you any news to give me about Forgue?"

"No, my lord," answered Donal. "I do not even know whether or not they
meet, but I am afraid."

"Oh, I daresay," rejoined his lordship, "the whim is wearing off! One
pellet drives out another. Behind the love in the popgun came the
conviction that it would be simple ruin! But we Graemes are
stiff-necked both to God and man, and I don't trust him much."

"He gave you no promise, if you remember, my lord."

"I remember very well; why the deuce should I not remember? I am not in
the way of forgetting things! No, by God! nor forgiving them either!
Where there's anything to forgive there's no fear of my forgetting!"

He followed the utterance with a laugh, as if he would have it pass for
a joke, but there was no ring in the laugh.

He then gave Donal detailed instructions as to where the bureau stood,
how he was to open it with a curious key which he told him where to
find in the room, how also to open the secret part of the bureau in
which the papers lay.

"Forget!" he echoed, turning and sweeping back on his trail; "I have
not been in that house for twenty years: you can judge whether I
forget!--No!" he added with an oath, "if I found myself forgetting I
should think it time to look out; but there is no sign of that yet,
thank God! There! take the keys, and be off! Simmons will give you the
key of the house. You had better take that of the door in the close: it
is easier to open."

Donal went away wondering at the pleasure his frightful tale afforded
the earl: he had seemed positively to gloat over the details of it!
These were much worse than I have recorded: he showed special delight
in narrating how the mother took the body of her child out of the pot!

He sought Simmons and asked him for the key. The butler went to find
it, but returned saying he could not lay his hands upon it; there was,
however, the key of