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"Scarcely deserted, I think. They are merely straggling."

"Absent without leave," murmured Val Beverley.

I laughed, and drew up a chair. Madame de Staemer was smoking, but Miss Beverley was not. Accordingly, I offered her a cigarette, which she accepted, and as I was lighting it with elaborate care, every moment finding a new beauty in her charming face, Pedro again appeared and addressed some remark in Spanish to Madame.

"My chair, Pedro," she said; "I will come at once."

The Spanish butler wheeled the chair across to the settee, and lifting her with an ease which spoke of long practice, placed her amidst the cushions where she spent so many hours of her life.

"I know you will excuse me, dear," she said to Val Beverley, "because I feel sure that Mr. Knox will do his very best to make up for my absence. Presently, I shall be back."

Pedro holding the door open, she went wheeling out, and I found myself alone with Val Beverley.

At the time I was much too delighted to question the circumstances which had led to this tete-a-tete, but had I cared to give the matter any consideration, it must have presented rather curious features. The call first of host and then of hostess was inconsistent with the courtesy of the master of Cray's Folly, which, like the appointments of his home and his mode of life, was elaborate. But these ideas did not trouble me at the moment.

Suddenly, however, indeed before I had time to speak, the girl started and laid her hand upon my arm.

"Did you hear something?" she whispered, "a queer sort of sound?"

"No," I replied, "what kind of sound?"

"An odd sort of sound, almost like--the flapping of wings."

I saw that she had turned pale, I saw the confirmation of something which I had only partly realised before: that her life at Cray's Folly was a constant fight against some haunting shadow. Her gaiety, her lightness, were but a mask. For now, in those wide-open eyes, I read absolute horror.

"Miss Beverley," I said, grasping her hand reassuringly, "you alarm me. What has made you so nervous to-night?"

"To-night!" she echoed, "to-night? It is every night. If you had not come--" she corrected herself--"if someone had not come, I don't think I could have stayed. I am sure I could not have stayed."

"Doubtless the attempted burglary alarmed you?" I suggested, intending to sooth her fears.

"Burglary?" She smiled unmirthfully. "It was no burglary."

"Why do you say so, Miss Beverley?"

"Do you think I don't know why Mr. Harley is here?" she challenged. "Oh, believe me, I know--I know. I, too, saw the bat's wing nailed to the door, Mr. Knox. You are surely not going to suggest that this was the work of a burglar?"

I seated myself beside her on the settee.

"You have great courage," I said. "Believe me, I quite understand all that you have suffered."

"Is my acting so poor?" she asked, with a pathetic smile.

"No, it is wonderful, but to a sympathetic observer only acting, nevertheless."

I noted that my presence reassured her, and was much comforted by this fact.

"Would you like to tell me all about it," I continued; "or would this merely renew your fears?"

"I should like to tell you," she replied in a low voice, glancing about her as if to make sure that we were alone. "Except for odd people, friends, I suppose, of the Colonel's, we have had so few visitors since we have been at Cray's Folly. Apart from all sorts of queer happenings which really"--she laughed nervously--"may have no significance whatever, the crowning mystery to my mind is why Colonel Menendez should have leased this huge house."

"He does not entertain very much, then?"

"Scarcely at all. The 'County'--do you know what I mean by the 'County?'--began by receiving him with open arms and ended by sending him to Coventry. His lavish style of entertainment they labelled 'swank'--horrible word but very expressive! They concluded that they did not understand him, and of everything they don't understand they disapprove. So after the first month or so it became very lonely