the exquisite
pitch to which human nerves can be attuned. The body then becomes a
tower set with the filaments of wireless telegraphy, each of the
thousand nerves straining forth to catch the faintest sound, the most
shadowy disturbance. Even premonitions become verities; indistinct
propositions tangible facts.

In that exalted pitch of nervous sensibility Mackenzie stood
listening, fifty feet or less from the kitchen door. No sound, but a
sharp scent of cigarette smoke came blowing from the dark house.
Mackenzie's heart seemed to gorge and stop. Earl Reid was there.
Perhaps Mary had not heard a voice in a dream.

At the closed door Mackenzie listened. For a little, no sound; then a
foot shifted on the floor. Almost immediately someone began walking up
and down the room, pushing a chair aside as if to clear the way.
Mackenzie remembered the window high in the wall beside the stove and
went hastily around the house to it, restraining himself from bursting
precipitately into something which might be no concern of his or
warrant his interference at all. It seemed so preposterous even to
suspect that Joan was there.

Reid was pacing up and down the room, a lantern standing on the floor
beside the chair from which he had risen. The place had been
readjusted since the ruin that fell over it in Mackenzie's fight with
Swan; the table stood again in the place where he had eaten his supper
on it, the broken leg but crudely mended.

Reid seemed to be alone, from what of the interior of the house
Mackenzie could see, shifting to bring the door of the inner room to
view. It was closed; Joan was not there.

Mackenzie watched Reid as he paced up and down the kitchen floor.
There was a nervousness over him, as of a man who faced a great
uncertainty. He walked with bent head, now turning it sharply as he
stood listening, now going on again with hands twitching. He threw
down his cigarette and stamped it, went to the kitchen door, opened it
and stood listening.

A little while Reid stood at the door, head turned, as if he harkened
for the approach of somebody expected. When he turned from the door he
left it open, rolled a cigarette, crossed to the door of the inner
room, where he stood as if he debated the question of entering. A
little while in that uncertain, hesitant way; then he struck a match
on the door and turned again to his pacing and smoking.

Mackenzie almost decided to go to the open door and speak to Reid, and
le