“You seem to know a good deal about this place, and I suppose I can’t object to your familiarizing yourself with your own property. And the notes—I’ll give myself the pleasure of handing them to you to-morrow. You can cancel them and give them to Mr. Pickering,— a pretty pledge between you !”

I thrust my hands into my pockets to give an impression of ease I did not feel.

“Yes,” she remarked in a practical tone, “three hundred and twenty thousand dollars is no mean sum of money. Mr. Pickering will undoubtedly be delighted to have his debts canceled—”

“In exchange for a life of devotion,” I sneered. “So you knew the sum the exact amount of these notes. He hasn’t served you well; he should have told you that we found them to-day.”

“You are not nice, are you, Squire Glenarm, when you are cross ?”

She was like Olivia now. I felt the utter futility of attempting to reason with a woman who could become a child at will. She walked up the steps and out into the church vestibule. Then before the outer door she spoke with decision.

“We part here, if you please ! And—I have not the slightest intention of trying to explain my errand into that passage. You have jumped to your own conclusion, which will have to serve you. I advise you not to think very much about it,—to the exclusion of more important business,—Squire Glenarm !”

She lifted the lantern to turn out its light, and it made a glory of her face, but she paused and held it toward me.

“Pardon me ! You will need this to light you home. ” “But you must not cross the park alone !”

“Good night ! Please be sure to close the door to the passage when you go down. You are a dreadfully heedless person, Squire Glenarm.”

She flung open the outer chapel-door, and ran along the path toward St. Agatha’s. I watched her in the starlight until a bend in the path hid her swift-moving figure.

Down through the passage I hastened, her lantern lighting my way. At the Door of Bewilderment I closed the opening, setting up the line of wall as we had left it in the afternoon, and then I went back to the library, freshened the fire and brooded before it until Bates came to relieve me at dawn.

CHAPTER XXV

BESIEGED

It was nine o’clock. A thermometer on the terrace showed the mercury clinging stubbornly to a point above zero; but the still air was keen and stimulating, and the sun argued for good cheer in a cloudless sky. We had swallowed some breakfast, though T believe no one had manifested an appetite, and we were cheering ourselves with the idlest talk possible. Stoddard, who had been to the chapel for his usual seven o’clock service, was deep in the pocket Greek testament he always carried.