ried. "There has been too much death."

"These days the world is full of death," he answered. "What are one or
two here?"

The voice carried as little expression as the face or the figure, but an
accent, which Garth knew, hindered its flow, and defined the situation
with a brutal clearness.

He turned at a slipping behind him, a heavy fall. Alden lay on the
floor, his hand stretched towards the futile spot of white beneath the
table. His wife stumbled across and knelt beside him, restlessly
fingering his shoulders.

"Andrew!" she cried. "You don't understand. Look at me. You have to
understand. I love you. Nothing changes that."

The newcomer moved to her, and, without relaxing his vigilance, grasped
her arm.

"There's too much to be done to-night for tears. Keep your watch."

He indicated Garth.

"I'll come back and attend to him later."

She continued to stare at her husband's closed eyes.

"He knows now, but you shan't kill him. I tell you you shan't kill him."

"When the occasion arises you will follow your duty," he said.

He turned to Garth, pointing to the oak door in the rear corner.

"You will go in there."

A flashing recollection of Nora decided Garth. Resistance now, he knew,
as he studied the great figure, would mean the end, whereas, if he
waited and obeyed, the knife, secreted in his felt, offered a possible
escape.

"Wait!" the man snapped.

He thrust the revolver in Mrs. Alden's hand while he ran quickly over
Garth's clothing. The thickness of the belt escaped him. He found only
the pocket lamp.

"The telephone is disconnected," he said, evidently to reassure the
woman. "Your husband is too weak to leave the house, and no one will
come near it until daylight. We won't cross that bridge before we reach
it."

She shuddered.

The other opened the oak door and motioned Garth to enter. He went
through, simulating a profound dejection, but actually reaching out
again to confidence. For the man would come back to visit him with the
silent, undemonstrative violence that had done for the two men in the
woods, but Garth would be waiting for him, behind the door, with his
knife. Therefore, when the door was locked, he commenced hopefully to
examine his prison.

The night, he found after a moment, was not complete in here. It
possessed a quality, milky but lustreless, reminiscent of the shroud
through which the shadowy figures had paraded. It retained, however, the
obscurity of thorough