Part 23 (1/2)

”There were no marks on the body.”

Alden looked up. His voice thickened.

”We are talking too much. I--I want you to stay and judge for yourself.”

Garth arose and walked to the rear window, but he could see nothing for the mist. He stood there, nevertheless, for some time, puzzled and half angry. The mental and physical condition of his host, Mrs. Alden's shattered nerves, the extreme loneliness, impressed on him a sense of uncharted adventuring.

”Why,” he asked himself, ”won't these people talk? What do they expect me to find in this house?”

When he turned back he saw that Alden's eyes were closed. The regular rising and falling of his chest warned Garth to quietness. He would not disturb the worn-out man. So he pressed the electric bell and walked to the hall. He met John there.

”Please show me to my room,” he said. ”Mr. Alden's asleep. Perhaps you'd better speak to his wife before you disturb him.”

John bowed and led him upstairs.

”Good-night, sir,” he said, opening the door. ”May you sleep well. It's a little hard here lately.”

He hesitated. He cleared his throat.

”You couldn't persuade him to send his wife away?” he went on at last.

”She's not strong, sir. It's pitiful.”

”See here, John,” Garth said impulsively. ”I know it's against the rules, but tell me what's wrong here. What are you all afraid of?”

The old man's lips moved. His eyes sought Garth's urgently. With a visible effort he backed out of the room. His glance left Garth. When he opened his lips all he said was:

”Good-night, sir.”

Garth closed the door, shrugging his shoulders. Of what a delicacy the threat must be to require such scrupulous handling! ”If there is anything,” Alden had said. Garth brought his hands together.

”There is something,” he muttered, ”something as dangerous as the death Alden is manufacturing back there.”

He went to bed, but the restlessness of the train returned to him.

Reviewing Alden's exhaustion and the old servant's significant comment, he wondered half seriously if sleep refused to enter this house. The place, even for his splendidly controlled emotions, possessed a character, depressive, unhealthy, calmly malevolent.

He had lost account of time. He had been, perhaps, on the frontier of sleep, for, as he sprang upright, he could not be all at once sure what had aroused him. A man's groan, he thought. Suddenly, tearing through the darkness, came the affirmation--a feminine scream, full of terror, abruptly ended.

He threw on his clothes, grasped his revolver, dashed down the stairs, and burst into the living-room. There was no light now beyond the wan glow of the fire, but it was still sufficient to show him Alden, huddled more than ever in the chair, and the terror that had quivered through the cry, persisted now in Alden's face.

His wife, in a dressing gown, knelt at his side, her arm around his knees. At Garth's entrance she sprang erect, facing him.

”It came,” she gasped. ”Oh, I knew it would. All along I've known.”

”Tell me what's happened,” Garth commanded.

The woman's voice was scarcely intelligible.

”I let him sleep here. Just now he groaned. I ran in.