his sword from him who has just given the accolade, and stared down at
it until the creaking of the opened French windows startled him to his
feet.

"Wait!" he called, "I will go also!"

The big man at the open window turned.

"You will sit where you are now," said his harsh voice, "but if I don't
return you have the key to the room."

His burly shoulders disappeared down the steps toward the garden, and
Anthony slipped back into his chair; yet for the first time in his life
he was dreaming of disobeying the command of John Woodbury.
Woodbury--yet the big man had risen automatically in answer to the name
of Bard. John Bard! It struck on his consciousness like two hammer blows
wrecking some fragile fabric; it jarred home like the timed blow of a
pugilist. Woodbury? There might be a thousand men capable of that name,
but there could only be one John Bard, and that was he who had
disappeared down the steps leading to the garden. Anthony swerved in his
chair and fastened his eyes on the Dutch clock. He gave himself five
minutes before he should move.

The watched pot will never boil, and the minute hand of the big clock
dragged forward with deadly pauses from one black mark to the next.
Whispers rose in the room. Something fluttered the fallen newspaper as
if a ghost-hand grasped it but had not the strength to raise; and the
window rattled, with a sharp gust of wind. The last minute Anthony spent
at the open French window with a backward eye on the clock; then he
raced down the steps as though in his turn he answered a call out of the
night.

The placid coolness of the open and the touch of moist, fresh air
against his forehead mocked him as he reached the garden, and there were
reassuring whispers from the trees he passed; yet he went on with a
long, easy stride like a runner starting a distance race. First he
skirted the row of poplars on the drive; then doubled back across the
meadow to his right and ran in a sharp-angling course across an orchard
of apple trees. Diverging from this direction, he circled at a quicker
pace toward the rear of the grounds and coursed like a wild deer over a
stretch of terraced lawns. On one of these low crests he stopped short
under the black shadow of an elm.

In the smooth-shaven centre of the hollow before him, the same ground
over which he had run and played a thousand times in his childhood, he
saw two tall men standing back to back, like fighters come to a last
stand and faci