. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. It
pleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary.
Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night.

"You will understand"--he gave me a straight, clear, proud
look--"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you.
But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I had
to find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my search
in no wise jeopardizes your interests.

"Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored over
old papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses of
Hynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidence
together--Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper in
Freeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line of
dots. But there the thread snapped.

"Do you remember the morning you told me, The Author's guess that
'Hellen's Keye' was the Greek fret, the design over all the windows
and doors of Hynds House? The trail was plain then. I was to follow
the line of the Greek key for three and thirty turnings, when I
should come upon a sign. I tried and tried. And to-night--I reached
the end of it, Sophy. I found it." Again his forehead was damp, and
his pallor, if possible, deepened.

I rose as if on springs. The hair of my head rose, too, I thought,
and my scalp tingled.

"Found what?"

"The hidden room that the masters built for the master of Hynds
House." He stopped, and a shudder passed over him. His hand closed
upon mine, and it was deathly cold.

"You have been in a secret room?--here in Hynds House?" I asked
incredulously.

"Yes," said he in a whisper. "I opened the door--and went in. The
room hadn't been opened for a hundred years, Sophy. There was a
table in one corner, and I went over to it. There was something
else there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at me
with dilated eyes.

"What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?"

"The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW

I was taken with a cold grue.

"Is it--murder?" It seemed to me that the still room shook and
echoed to the barely whispered word, that the candles stirred and
flickered as in a wind of passing wings.

"Not in the sense you mean," he replied. "But whatever it may be,
Sophy, this thing has got to be met and faced by us two together. It
concerns you now, as well as me." He stood up as he spoke. "And
now," he asked, "are you strong eno