them by tying them to a belt I wore for this
purpose. Then I went in. I found the door of the house ajar, and
entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room. I moved with care, in
the gloom, through the furniture, and, aided by a flash of lightning,
found my way into the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall, was
a small room. The door was open. I smelled very vile pipe-smoke and
heard footfalls overhead, but no sound of voices. I became at once
hopeful that I should have to deal with but one man. I opened
cautiously a window in the little room and sat down to listen and
wait. I had been given a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45.
Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were now gleams of
unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of wind-driven rain.

I rose and shut to a crack the door of the room and waited. Beyond the
wall, to my right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of "Murder!
murder! Help! help!" shrill, feminine, convincing. Then came a
pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment a third more remote, and,
far away, the cries of men.

My time had come. That the gate guards would make for the direction of
the sound we had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the
house guard was left to chance. At all events, he would be isolated
for a time. To my relief, the ruse answered. I shut the window
noiselessly as I heard my host running down the stairway.

He opened the hall door in haste and was dimly seen from my window
hurrying toward the gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall
door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been prepared for my coming
and met me on the first landing.

"Quick," I said. "You expected me. The boudoir." She had her good
Yankee wits about her, and in a minute I was kneeling, wildly anxious,
and groping in the ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my
shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after, I cried that I
had locked the hall door, and to unlock it when I was gone. "Be
quick," I added, "and lock the conservatory door behind me. No one
has been seen by you. Go to your own room." Pausing to put on my
shoes, I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing the guard
who must have joined his fellows outside.

XIII

I had an awful five minutes in my efforts to climb the wall. We had
forgotten that. For a minute I was in despair, and then I fell over a
garden chair. I dragged it to the wall and somehow scrambled up, and,
panting, lay