A man was standing behind it. The French window had been opened at least eight inches, and the man stood partly in the aperture and partly in the room. He did not flinch. He did not even seem scared, nor yet disturbed. He was a middle-aged man, with grey hair, and a worn, rather sad face, and he wore a blue suit of clothes, which showed earth-stains and other evidences of an exciting and violent life. He was, in fact, the man whom Ilam had buried, and who described himself to Carpentaria as Mr. Jetsam.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Pauline, in a low, brave voice. “What do you want?”

She mastered her fear, though her heart was beating madly. She determined that, just as she had proved equal to difficult situations in the past, she would prove equal to this one.

“Now that you have seen me, I want to talk to you,” replied the man.

“You climbed up by the balcony, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the intruder. “Nothing more simple. I found a ladder.”

“Then you had better go as you came—and quickly!” said the girl.

“And the alternative?”

“Of course, I must call the master of the house. In any event I shall do that.”

“No,” said Mr. Jetsam. “For heaven’s sake don’t call Jos.”

“Jos!” repeated Pauline, astounded at this familiarity.

“I said ‘Jos,’” the man insisted firmly. “What do you take me for?”

“Naturally I take you for a burglar. What else should you be?”

“Now, do I look like a burglar?” Mr. Jetsam asked severely. “Examine me, and tell me whether I look like a burglar.”

“Whatever you are,” said Pauline, in a tone of decision, “I cannot remain talking to you like this. I am in charge of an invalid here, and you must go.”

The man gazed at her fixedly. She thought his eyes were very sad eyes, and yet dignified, too. They reminded her of the eyes of Mrs. Ilam. And presently, when they grew moist, they reminded her even more of the eyes of Mrs. Ilam.

“Miss Dartmouth,” said the man, “I can easily prove to you that I am not a burglar.”

“Then you know me?”

“I know of you. I know your name. I know you by sight. I know that you and your sister have come into this stricken and fatal house from sheer goodness of heart!’

“Do not talk like that,” said Pauline, whom any praise, save of her personal appearance, made extremely uncomfortable. She endeavoured to make her voice cold, forbidding, and accusatory, but she could not. The eyes of the grey-haired man seemed to hypnotize her, to rob her of initiative, and of the power to decide things for herself.

“I will talk in any manner you like,” returned Mr. Jetsam, “provided you will let me come into the room and explain to you what I want.”

“Impossible,” she replied.

“Why impossible? It is, on the contrary, perfectly easy,” said Mr. Jetsam. “All I have to do is to close the window”—and he closed it—“to come into the room”—and he came in—“and to ask you to be good enough to listen.”

He put down his felt hat on a chair.

He now stood within the room, a couple of feet from Pauline, in the direction of the bed, but with his back to it.

Pauline, with a sudden sharp movement, darted to the mantelpiece, by the side of which was the bell-push. In the same instant he, too, darted forward and clutched her wrist, just as she was about to touch the bell. They held themselves rigid for a moment, like statues.

“I understand your feelings,” said Mr. Jetsam in a shaken voice. “I admire you. But before you ring that bell, let me assure you most solemnly that if you do ring it you will bring murder into this house. You will utterly ruin one family, if not two. Believe what I say; you cannot help but believe it. A man’s character for truthfulness shows itself in every accent of his voice, and by this time, you must be very well aware that when I speak, I speak the truth.”

Pauline moved from the mantelpiece and he loosed her arm.

“Well?” she said interrogatively.

She did not know it, but she was breathing very rapidly through her nose, and her charming nostrils were distended. Still, she probably noticed the admiration in Mr. Jetsam’s glance.

“Miss Dartmouth,” he began, and then stopped.

Simultaneously they both thought of the invalid stretched moveless on the bed, and Pauline bent over that form. The eyes blinked irregularly, and always they stared up at the same point of the ceiling. They were dry, but Pauline noticed traces of tears on the rugged cheeks, and she wiped them away—it was her mission.

“Ah!” she murmured. “You can’t advise me what I ought to do.”

And then she faced Mr. Jetsam once more, still standing by the bed. The table-lamp, with the crimson silk shade, and the bright fire gave sufficient light.

“Miss Dartmouth,” Mr. Jetsam recommenced, “a great crime was committed long ago in the Ilam family, one of the most cruel crimes conceivable. It can never be atoned for in full, or nearly in full: but, even now, after many, many years, it can be partially atoned for.”

“Who committed this crime? and what was it? Murder?” gasped Pauline in a breath.

“I cannot be sure who committed it,” replied the man; “and it was not murder. It was worse than murder.”

“How do you know it was worse than murder? How does it concern you?”

“I was the victim,” said the man quietly. And then he raised his voice and repeated: “I was the victim. I am the victim.”

“Hush!” she warned him. “Not so loud.”

He turned to the bed with a strange expression on his face.

“Why not so loud?” he demanded. “She can hear, even if we speak in a whisper. She has heard everything, and she can do nothing.”

He spoke bitterly, and held a pointing finger at the old woman. And her eyes remained ever fixed, blinking irregularly, regardless of the two beings near her.

“You are cruel,” said Pauline. “You torture her.”

“Far from being cruel,” said Mr. Jetsam, “I am kind. Justice is always kind, for it alone produces peace, and peace alone produces happiness.”

“You would not talk like that if you had ever been happy,” said Pauline.

“If I have not been happy, it is because justice has been denied me. If this old woman and her son have never been happy it is because they have denied me justice. But justice may now be done, and you yourself may be the first instrument of it.”

“Tell me how,” said Pauline.

“You will be the blind instrument,” he said.

“Tell me how,” Pauline repeated.

“I have been watching a long time at that window,” said the man, always with the utmost respect—“and what I saw convinces me that you know more of this affair than you care to seem to know.”

“What do you mean?” demanded the girl defiantly.

“Well,” said Mr. Jetsam, “Mrs. Ilam cannot talk, cannot give instructions of any kind. Yet I saw you take a particular box from off the chest of drawers, and hide it under the invalid’s pillow. In order to hide it, you actually disturbed the invalid. You lifted her head to enable you to conceal the box in the bed beneath it. That is strange, Miss Dartmouth. But I have no desire to pry into your secrets. You are a friend of the family, nay more, a relative, and you had the right to do all that you have done. But let me tell you at once that I have come in search of precisely that box. I hoped to get it while everybody was asleep; but I was prepared for emergencies. If your cousin Ilam had been here in your place I should have obtained possession of it without asking his leave. But you—well, I humbly ask you to give it to me.”

Pauline gazed at the poor organism on the bed.

“Is he to have the box?” she asked. “Is he to have the box, Mrs. Ilam?”

The staring, sad eyes did not move. There was not the slightest flutter of the lids.

“Why do you put questions to her?” asked Mr. Jetsam moodily.

“She means that you are not to have the box,” said Pauline, and then she addressed Mrs. Ilam anew. “You mean that he is to go away without the box?”

The eyelids wavered and then blinked rapidly.

“That means ‘Yes.’ You must now go—at once. I have listened to you too long,” said Pauline.

“It is impossible that you should refuse me,” argued the man. “Impossible! I don’t suppose that motion of the eyelids means anything, but even if it did, naturally she does not want me to have the box. Still, I must have it. Miss Dartmouth, everything depends on my obtaining that box. Its contents are essential to the bringing about of justice. I entreat you most urgently and most solemnly to give it to me. You cannot doubt my sincerity.”

“I will admit frankly,” answered Pauline, “that I do not doubt your sincerity. But, all the same, you cannot have that box—at least from my hands. It belongs to Mrs. Ilam; she evidently treasures it highly. I put it under her pillow to satisfy her. Mrs. Ilam is helpless, and I am in charge of her. You must go, I repeat—and at once. We have talked too much.”

“Suppose I take it by force?” suggested the man.

“You would never dare,” said Pauline angrily, and she rushed again to the bell. “If you attempt to take it I will ring the bell, and I will hold you till some one comes, even if I die for it.”

“Mad creature!” he exclaimed acidly. “I could kill you. It is almost worth while; but I won’t. You tell me to go, and I go; but my resources are not yet exhausted. Good-night. I can’t leave without expressing the opinion that you’ve got both sense and grit, and plenty of both. But you’ve made a mistake to-night. Good-bye.”

And while she stood with her hand on the bell-push Mr. Jetsam passed very calmly out of the window, and the curtain fell in front of him and hid him.

It was the most curious adventure of Pauline’s life, which, indeed, had hitherto been entirely free from the unusual and the mysterious. After a short period of hesitation she went to the window, drew aside the curtain boldly, and looked out into the night of the City. There was no sign of her late visitor, but the ladder rested against the balcony, a proof of his recent presence; otherwise, she might have persuaded herself that what she had been through was a dream. She shut the window and bolted it, and came back into the room. The old woman, with her dark burning eyes staring always at the same spot on the ceiling, seemed now somewhat easier. Pauline gazed at her, and, after having stirred the fire, lay down again on the couch.

And as she closed her eyes, the strange enigma of Mrs. Ilam and her son and the nocturnal visitant filled her mind with distracting and futile thoughts. Who was this grey-haired man, at once so masterful, so dignified, and so desperate? What could be the justice that he demanded? what the contents of the lacquered box? She would have a real good talk with Rosie in the morning. That prospect comforted her. Rosie—Rosie—— Suddenly she started, and gradually she perceived that she had been asleep a long time—two hours, perhaps—and that something, some presence, had wakened her. Looking round, she noticed that the door, which had been closed, was now open.

She jumped up and went out of the room to the passage, but she could neither see nor hear anything. Then, as her eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, she detected a very faint, thin pencil of light at the other end of the passage, and on approaching it she found that it came from her sister’s room. She crept forward, pushed open the door and went in. Rosie, fully dressed, was sitting on a chair near the window, which was not quite closed, and her face was hidden in her hands, and she appeared to be crying.

“Rosie,” exclaimed Pauline, “whatever’s the matter? Why aren’t you in bed and asleep?”

And Rosie subsided into her sister’s arms, weeping violently.

“I haven’t been to bed at all,” she said at last. “I’ve never slept in a room with a balcony before, and I couldn’t resist going out on to this balcony to see how beautiful the night was. And I began to think what a splendid time we were having, and I watched the stars, and I heard the clock strike in the tower over there, and the gardens looked so beautiful in the starlight, and a long, long time must have passed. And then I saw a man standing under my window. He was a man dressed in blue, with grey hair, and he began to talk to me.”

“And why didn’t you tell him to go away, my dear?”

“He seemed so sad, and he said such interesting things. Pauline, darling, there’s something very, very wrong in this house—some mystery! He told me. No one could help believing what he says, and he has such a beautiful voice. I cried, almost, in listening to him.”

“But who was he?”

“I think he must be some relative,” said Rosie. “I think so. He didn’t say. What he did say was that there was a black box which it was absolutely necessary he must have. Oh, Pauline, I’m sure he isn’t a thief! He’s a man who has suffered a great deal, and he asked me to get the box for him, and his face was so sad—well, I said I would. And he told me exactly where it was.”

“Where did he say it was?”

“He said it was under Mrs. Ilam’s pillow; and it was, true enough.”

“How do you know?” cried Pauline, aghast.

“I crept into your room, and lifted Mrs. Ilam’s head, and took the box. You were fast asleep. He asked me to see if you were asleep, and, if you were, not to wake you. So I came as quietly as a mouse.”

“And you obeyed him like that?” murmured Pauline, astounded.

“I couldn’t help it. I felt so sorry for him. And his voice was so——”

“Rosie!” said Pauline. “You used to be sensible enough!”

“I couldn’t help it!” moaned Rosie again.