d of some one moving about came to him
distinctly; he could see no light below, but when he ran down to the
turn of the stairs, it became plain that there was a very dim and
flickering light in the library. He crept on farther down the
staircase. His hands were cold and moist from his excitement, and his
body was hot and trembling.

Whoever it was that was moving about down-stairs, even if he was not
one who had a right to be there, at least felt secure from
interruption. He was going with heavy step from window to window;
where he found a shade up, he pulled it down brusquely and with a
violence which suggested great strength under a nervous strain; a
shade, which had been pulled down, flew up, and the man damned it as
though it had startled him; then, after an instant, he pulled it down
again.

Alan crept still farther down and at last caught sight of him. The man
was not his father; he was not a servant; it was equally sure at the
same time that he was not any one who had any business to be in the
house and that he was not any common house-breaker.

He was a big, young-looking man, with broad shoulders and very evident
vigor; Alan guessed his age at thirty-five; he was handsome--he had a
straight forehead over daring, deep-set eyes; his nose, lips, and chin
were powerfully formed; and he was expensively and very carefully
dressed. The light by which Alan saw these things came from a flat
little pocket searchlight that the man carried in one hand, which threw
a little brilliant circle of light as he directed it; and now, as the
light chanced to fall on his other hand--powerful and heavily
muscled--Alan recollected the look and size of the finger prints on the
chest of drawers upstairs. He did not doubt that this was the same man
who had gone through the desk; but since he had already rifled the
desks, what did he want here now? As the man moved out of sight, Alan
crept on down as far as the door to the library; the man had gone on
into the rear room, and Alan went far enough into the library so he
could see him.

He had pulled open one of the drawers in the big table in the rear
room--the room where the organ was and where the bookshelves reached to
the ceiling--and with his light held so as to show what was in it, he
was tumbling over its contents and examining them. He went through one
after another of the drawers of the table like this; after examining
them, he rose and kicked the last one shut disgust