oaded revolver in my pocket, I
slipped into the hall. The faint light revealed its shabbiness, the
grimy rag carpet, and discolored walls. Some spirit of adventure led
me the full length until my hand was upon the latch of that last door.
I could not resist an impulse to look upon the dead man again by
daylight, and thus assure myself of the reality of what seemed only a
dream. I opened the door slowly, noiselessly, and peered cautiously
within. The light was strong there, revealing clearly every nook and
corner of the room. All was exactly as I recalled it to memory--the
stained walls, the dirty floor, the table littered with cards, the
overturned chair and the motionless body of the dead man. I ventured
half way to the window, staring about at every sign revealed in the
glare. From the wound in the head a dark flow of blood stained the
floor, and, as I bent closer, noticed the eyelids were lowered over the
dead eyes. Shot as he had been, killed instantly, the hand of the
assassin must have performed this act. Then surely this killing had
been no common quarrel, but a planned assassination, the culmination of
some prearranged plot.

This knowledge, while it set my heart throbbing in realization of new
danger, yet served also to stiffen my nerves. What had we blindly
drifted into? What was behind this lawlessness which could make murder
commonplace? What mystery lurked about this haunted, hideous house
where death skulked in the dark? My thought was not so much concerned
with myself, and my own danger, as with that of the young woman whom I
was bound to protect. She had come innocently, driven by desperation,
to play a part she already loathed in this tragedy, and now I alone
stood between her and something too awful to contemplate. Now, before
she awoke I must discover the truth, and thus be prepared to get her
safely away.

I closed the door on the silence, and stole quietly downstairs. There
was no movement, no sound in the great house. The front room, hideous
in its grimy disorder, was vacant, and I opened the front door
noiselessly, and stepped forth into the spectral gray light of the
dawn. The first glimpse about was depressing enough. I had no
conception of what I was confronting, or of what was to be revealed by
my explorations, but the dismalness of the picture presented to that
first glance gave me a shock impossible to explain. The house itself,
big and glaring as it was, was neverthele