he was conscious of a sudden chill--that seemed to him
as physical as it was mental. The room was slowly suffused with a cool
sodden breath and the dank odor of rotten leaves. He looked at the
candle--its flame was actually deflecting in this mysterious blast.
It seemed to come from a recess for hanging clothes topped by a heavy
cornice and curtain. He had examined it before, but he drew the
curtain once more aside. The cold current certainly seemed to be more
perceptible there. He felt the red-clothed backing of the interior,
and his hand suddenly grasped a doorknob. It turned, and the whole
structure--cornice and curtains--swung inwards towards him with THE DOOR
ON WHICH IT WAS HUNG! Behind it was a dark staircase leading from the
floor above to some outer door below, whose opening had given ingress to
the chill humid current from the ravine. This was the staircase where he
had just heard the footsteps--and this was, no doubt, the door through
which the mysterious figure had vanished from his room a few hours
before!

Taking his candle, he cautiously ascended the stairs until he found
himself on the landing of the suites of the married couples and directly
opposite to the rooms of the MacSpaddens and Deesides. He was about to
descend again when he heard a far-off shout, a scuffling sound on the
outer gravel, and the frenzied shaking of the handle of the lower door.
He had hardly time to blow out his candle and flatten himself against
the wall, when the door was flung open and a woman frantically flew up
the staircase. His own door was still open; from within its depths the
light of his fire projected a flickering beam across the steps. As she
rushed past it the light revealed her face; it needed not the peculiar
perfume of her garments as she swept by his concealed figure to make him
recognize--Lady Deeside!

Amazed and confounded, he was about to descend, when he heard the lower
door again open. But here a sudden instinct bade him pause, turn, and
reascend to the upper landing. There he calmly relit his candle, and
made his way down to the corridor that overlooked the central hall. The
sound of suppressed voices--speaking with the exhausted pauses that come
from spent excitement--made him cautious again, and he halted. It was
the card party slowly passing from the billiard-room to the hall.

"Ye owe it yoursel'--to your wife--not to pit up with it a day longer,"
said the subdued voice of Sir Alan. "Man! ye war in