er. She sees! She sees!"

The stranger struggled to his elbow and then to his knees, where he
remained staring intently at the girl, with eyes aglow. Then the girl
herself spoke.

"The lake! The lake!" she cried.

Wilson stepped to her side. He placed a hand firmly upon her
shoulder.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She lifted eyes as inscrutable as those of the image. They were slow
moving and stared as blankly at him as at the pictures on the wall. He
bent closer.

"Comrade--comrade--are you all right?"

Her lips moved to faint, incoherent mutterings. She did not seem to be
in pain, and yet in travail of some sort.

The stranger, pale, his forehead beaded with the excitement of the
moment, had tottered to his feet He seized Wilson's arm almost
roughly.

"Let her alone!" he commanded. "Can't you see? Dios! the image
speaks!"

"The image? have you gone mad?"

"No! No!" he ran on excitedly. "Listen!"

The girl's brow was knitted. Her arms and limbs moved restlessly. She
looked like one upon the point of crying at being baffled.

"There is a mist, but I can see--I--I can see----"

She gave a little sob. This was too much for Wilson. He reached for
the image, but he had not taken a step before he heard the voice of
the stranger.

"Touch that and I shoot."

The voice was cold and steady. He half turned and saw that the man had
regained his weapon. The hand that held it was steady, the eyes back
of it merciless. For one moment Wilson considered the advisability of
springing for him. But he regained his senses sufficiently to realize
that he would only fall in his tracks. Even a wounded man is not to be
trifled with when holding a thirty-two caliber revolver.

"Step back!"

Wilson obeyed.

"Farther!"

[Illustration: "_For the love of God, do not rouse her. She sees! She
sees!_"]

He retreated almost to the door into the next room. From that moment
his eyes never left the hand which held the weapon. He watched it for
the first sign of unsteadiness, for the first evidence of weakness or
abstraction. He measured the distance between them, weighed to a
nicety every possibility, and bided his time. He wanted just the
merest ghost of a chance of reaching that lean frame before the steel
devil could spit death. What it all meant he did not know, but it was
clear that this stranger was willing to sacrifice the girl to further
any project of his into which she had so strangely fallen. It was also
clear