d all that Raikes held dear in the world;
every spasm of fear, each contraction of the heart, always began and
concluded with the button which moved its protecting bolts.

But now a new element added its ugly emphasis; there was something
supernatural about the episode.

Convinced of the impossibility of thievery in any of its ordinary forms,
he was bewildered as to the inexplicable means of his present
predicament.

His sense of security was shaken.

He promised himself to stand guard over his belongings jealously that
day, and to make assurance doubly sure at night.

In the meantime Raikes decided to confide his misfortune to no one.

There was a meager possibility that the guilty one might be misled by
his silence; he had heard of such cases; he had known of the culprit
offering condolences to the silent victim on the assumption that the
latter had discussed his mishap with others.

He would wait, and with Raikes to determine was to do.

With his obnoxious individuality rendered several degrees more
unendurable by his catastrophe, if that was possible, Raikes, having
assumed that portion of his attire in which he had not slept,
double-locked the door of his room from the outside with a brace of keys
that, in all likelihood, had not their duplicates in existence, and
proceeded to the dining-room, whither he had been preceded by his
parchment of a sister.

At once he began to rustle his exhausted sensibilities with an added
menace, awakened by a manifest desire on the part of the famished woman
to satisfy the cravings of an ungratified hunger with an extra help of
bread and butter.

As he looked upon the attenuated creature, with a morose reflection of
his loss, the latter, with a rebellion which she could not control,
selected with trembling fortitude a thick slice of bread, which she
buttered liberally and began to devour with pathetic haste, despite the
rebuking gleam of the rat eyes opposite, an episode which, added to his
already perturbed mind, exasperated his brutal temper to the point of
snarling remonstrance, which was fortunately denied its utterance by the
opportune arrival of the Sepoy, who smiled blandly upon the chill
acknowledgment of the shriveled Raikes.

The Sepoy, at the conclusion of a hearty repast, which the spinster
witnessed with famished envy and Raikes considered with ascetic
disapproval, looked, with a scarcely concealed disdain, into the
furtive, troubled eyes of the miser and