ay till I felt I was attracting the attention
of my companion. As this was not desirable, I put on a nonchalant look
and began chatting about what I saw. But he had lapsed into his early
silence, and seemed wholly engrossed in his attempt to remove with the
butt-end of his whip a bit of rag which had somehow become entangled in
the spokes of one of the front wheels. The furtive look he cast me as he
succeeded in doing this struck me oddly at the moment, but it was too
small a matter to hold my attention long or to cause any cessation in
the flow of small talk with which I was endeavoring to enliven the
situation.

My desire for conversation lagged, however, as I saw rising up before us
the dark boughs of a pine thicket. We were nearing Lost Man's Lane; we
were abreast of it; we were--yes, we were turning into it!

I could not repress an exclamation of dismay.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To Miss Knollys' house," he found words to say, with a sidelong glance
at me full of uneasy inquiry.

"Do they live on this road?" I cried, remembering with a certain shock
Mr. Gryce's suspicious description of the two young ladies who with
their brother inhabited the dilapidated mansion marked A in the map he
had shown me.

"Where else?" was his laconic answer; and, obliged to be satisfied with
this curtest of curt replies, I drew myself up with just one longing
look behind me at the cheerful highway we were so rapidly leaving. A
cottage, with an open window, in which a child's head could be seen
nodding eagerly toward me, met my eyes and filled me with quite an odd
sense of discomfort as I realized that I had caught the attention of one
of the little cripples who, according to Mr. Gryce, always kept watch
over this entrance into Lost Man's Lane. Another moment and the pine
branches had shut the vision out, but I did not soon forget that eager,
childish face and pointing hand, marking me out as a possible victim to
the horrors of this ill-reputed lane. But I was aware of no secret
flinching from the adventure into which I was plunging. On the contrary,
I felt a strange and fierce delight in thus being thrust into the very
heart of the mystery I had only expected to approach by degrees. The
warning message sent me by Mr. Gryce had acquired a deeper and more
significant meaning, as did the looks which had been cast me by the
station-master and his gossips on the hillside, but in my present mood
these very tokens of the seriou