darkness. He had a feeling, indeed, of standing in
a darkness that was white.

There must be windows over there, many windows. He felt his way across.
The wall, as well as the interior face of the door, was lined with sheet
tin, suggesting immediately the nature of his prison--a dismantled
conservatory. The glazed end was of small panes, heavily leaded. The
frames in themselves offered a resistance to escape as efficacious as
prison bars.

The arrangement, nevertheless, gave him one advantage. A single door to
guard removed the threat of a surprise.

In the centre of the floor he found a considerable heap of wood,
probably the fittings of the place. He scarcely dared pause to examine
it. He hurried back to his post at the doorway, removed the knife from
his belt, jointed it, and tested the point against his finger. He didn't
know how long his respite would last. He couldn't hazard a guess as to
the nature of the big man's occupation. He could only estimate its
importance by the fact that it had prevented the other's dealing
summarily with him.

He had entered the case with too little light. Nora had been right. One
can not follow a straight course through the dark. Only a few dim
outlines offered themselves for his appraisal. Mrs. Alden had made her
choice between an evident, an exceptional affection for her husband and
an enterprise directed by the sinister figure who had stepped from the
shadows. Of what a vast importance that enterprise must be since it had
prodded her to such a decision, since it had made her acquiesce,
however unwillingly, in murder to safeguard its progress! She faced
even the death of her own husband because he had learned too much of its
intention. And she had no slightest amorous tendency--of that Garth was
sure--towards the bearded giant to whose will she bent her own with a
pitiable humility. The lack of that world-wide, easily comprehensible
motive to wrong, taken with the leader's German accent, directed Garth's
logic to the furnaces, which night after night stained the sky with a
scarlet, significant of their feverish industry. Yet the shadowy figures
of the woods were still elusive, unless the place was used as a
rendezvous and the affair to-night approached a crisis. Could he escape?
Would he be in time to prevent a crime of such proportions, of such
disquieting possibilities?

He stiffened at a stealthy movement of the key in the lock. The answer
lay just ahead. Garth could not do