ntify that one which he had battered down. He had only forced
the lock so that the door when held closed again would show no sign of
having been touched. The priest, or whoever it was who had entered
after him, must have taken the same precaution, for every gate was now
fast shut. It seemed a hopeless search. Then he happened to remember
that the policeman had said that there was glass atop this particular
wall. He retraced his steps. The clue was a good one; he discovered
with a bounding heart that one alone of all the entrances was so
protected. He tried the door, and found to his further relief that it
gave readily. He stepped within and closed the gate behind him. He saw
then that it had been held by the same piece of joist he himself had
used, but had been so hastily and lightly fixed as merely to hold the
door shut. He ran across the yard and in another minute was through
the window and once again in the lower hall. It was fairly light there
now; he did not feel as though this was the same house. This was the
third time that he had hurried along this passage on his way to
unknown conditions above, and each time, though within a period of
less than a full day, had marked a crisis in his life.

As he sprang up the stairs it did not occur to him that he was unarmed
and yet running full ahead into what had proven a danger spot. It
would have mattered nothing had he realized this. He had not been
long enough in such games to value precaution. To reach her side as
quickly as possible was the only idea he could grasp now. At the top
of the second flight he called her name. He received no reply.

He crossed the hall and pushed aside the curtains which before had
concealed his unknown assailant. The blinds were still closed, so that
the room was in semi-darkness. The fire had gone out. There was no
sign of a human being. Wilson shouted her name once again. The silence
closed in upon him oppressively. He saw the dead hearth, saw the chair
in which she had curled herself up and gone to sleep, saw the rug upon
which Sorez had reclined, saw the very spot where she had sat with the
image in her lap, saw where she had stood as she had thrust the
revolver into his hand and sent him on his ill-omened errand. But all
these things only emphasized her absence. It was as though he were
looking upon the scene of events of a year past. She had gone.

He hurried into the next room--the room where Sorez, fainting, had
fumbled at the saf