bank of wood the
lights of the house flamed red. The melancholy even-song of a blackbird
wailed out from a shrubbery beside us. Then Herbert Brande wrote in his
note-book, and tearing out the page, he handed it to me, saying: "That
is the address of the last man who quitted us."

The light was now so dim I had to hold the paper close to my eyes in
order to read the lines. They were these--

GEORGE DELANY,
Near Saint Anne's Chapel,
Woking Cemetery.

CHAPTER V.

THE MURDER CLUB.

"Delany was the last man who quitted us--you see I use your expression
again. I like it," Brande said quietly, watching me as he spoke.

I stood staring at the slip of paper which I held in my hand for some
moments before I could reply. When my voice came back, I asked hoarsely:

"Did this man, Delany, die suddenly after quitting the Society?"

"He died immediately. The second event was contemporaneous with the
first."

"And in consequence of it?"

"Certainly."

"Have all the members who retired from your list been equally
short-lived?"

"Without any exception whatever."

"Then your Society, after all your high-flown talk about it, is only a
vulgar murder club," I said bitterly.

"Wrong in fact, and impertinent in its expression. It is not a murder
club, and--well, you are the first to discover its vulgarity."

"I call things by their plain names. You may call your Society what you
please. As to my joining it in face of what you have told me--"

"Which is more than was ever told to any man before he joined--to any
man living or dead. And more, you need not join it yet unless you still
wish to do so. I presume what I have said will prevent you."

"On the contrary, if I had any doubt, or if there was any possibility of
my wavering before this interview, there is none now. I join at once."

He would have taken my hand, but that I could not permit. I left him
without another word, or any form of salute, and returned to the house.
I did not appear again in the domestic circle that evening, for I had
enough upon my mind without further burdening myself with social
pretences.

I sat in my room and tried once more to consider my position. It was
this: for the sake of a girl whom I had only met some score of times;
who sometimes acted, talked, dressed after a fashion suggestive of
insanity; who had glorious dark eyes, a perfect figure, and an
exquisitely beautiful face--but I interrupt myself. For th