Too amazed to speak, too stunned to think, Hugh Pryde stood rigid—dumfounded. Helen was breathing rapidly, her breast rising and falling in great heaves, waves of alternate shadow and sunset veiling and lighting her face, her eyes far off and set, her hands reaching out to——

“Helen, my dear——” he said, brought to himself by her strangeness.

“Oh!” she cried fiercely, great longing fluting her voice—she was more intensely nervous than her companion had ever seen any one before, and he had seen hundreds of untried boys on the eve of battle—“Oh! it must be so. Why should the same thought come to us both—you at the front—I in London—come—so—vividly? And without any reason!—I am sure it’s Daddy.”

At the sight of her exaltation all his cocksure masculinity reasserted itself. He laid a patronizing, affectionate hand on her arm. “Don’t distress yourself with this, dear,” he said soothingly, “I can’t let you. Our both having the same feeling must have been only a coincidence.”

She shook off his hand with gentle impatience, the sex impatience of quick woman with man’s dullness, a delicate rage as old as the Garden of Eden. “No, no,” she said chidingly. “It wasn’t only that—it wasn’t only that.”

Her earnestness shook him a little—and perhaps his wish did too: any port in a storm, even a supernatural one!

“But if Uncle Dick could bring us to this room,” he asked slowly, “why doesn’t he show us what to do?”

“He will,” she said—almost sternly—“he will—now that he has brought us here—why, that proves it! Don’t you see? I see!—now that he has brought us here—He will come to us.” She sank down into a low chair near the writing-table, her eyes rapt, riveted on space.

Again masculine superiority reasserted itself, and something creature-love, and chivalry too—jostling aside the “almost I am persuaded” that the moment before had cried in his soul, and Hugh put a pitying hand on her shoulder, saying,

“I don’t want to make you unhappy, Helen, but that’s impossible.” Thought-transference, spiritual-wireless—um—well, perhaps—but ghosts!—perish the folly!

Helen looked up, and, at something in her face, he took his hand from her shoulder. The girl shivered. And in another moment the khaki-clad man shivered too—rather violently. “How cold it is here,” he said, and repeated somewhat dreamily—“How cold!”

“Yes,” Helen echoed in an unnatural voice, “cold.”

“I must have left the window open,” Hugh said with an effort. He went to the casement. “No,” he said with a puzzled frown. “I did close it—tight.” He crossed to Helen again and stood looking down on her—worried and at sea. She sighed and looked up—almost he could see her mood of exaltation, or emotion, or whatever it was, pass. She spoke to him in a clear, natural voice. “What are we going to do, Hugh? We must do something.”

“I don’t know,” he said hopelessly—and began moving restlessly about the room.

Suddenly Helen sat upright and gave a swift half-frightened look over her shoulder.

“Hugh!”

He came to her at once. “Yes.”

“Don’t think me hysterical—but we don’t know that Daddy couldn’t come back—we can’t be sure. What if he were here, in this room now, trying to tell us something, and we couldn’t understand?”

“Helen, my dearest,” Hugh deprecated.

“Wait,” she whispered, rising slowly. “Wait!” For an instant she stood erect, her slim height carved by the last of the sunshine out of the shadows—trance-like, rigid. But at that sybil-moment Stephen Pryde opened the door softly and came through it. The girl’s taut figure quivered, relaxed, and with a moan—“No—no—I—no—no——” she sank down again and buried her face in her hands.

Richard Bransby come from the dead could scarcely have confounded Stephen more than the sight of Hugh did. For a moment of distraught dismay the elder brother stood supine and irresolute on the threshold. Then forcing himself to face dilemma, and to deal with it, if possible, as such natures do at terribly crucial moments—until they reach their breaking point—he called his brother by name.

Hugh swung round with a glad exclamation of surprise, and held out his hand. Stephen gripped it; and, when he could trust his voice, he said,

“I had no idea you were here.”

Helen rose and went to them eagerly. “He has come back to us, Stephen, he has been to France—he has been offered a commission—he has proved himself,” she poured out in one exultant breath.

“I am glad to see you, Hugh, very glad——” Stephen said gravely, “but you shouldn’t have come.”

“Why not?” the girl demanded.

Stephen turned to her then; he had paid no attention to her before, scarcely had known of her presence.

“The warrant,” he said to her sadly. “Hugh,” at once turning again to him, “didn’t you know that there was a warrant out for your arrest?”

“I only heard of it a day or two ago.”

“Then you must realize what a risk you run in coming here. Why did you take such a chance?”

“He came to clear himself,” Helen interposed.

“What?” Stephen cried, his dismay undisguised, but the others were too overwrought to catch it. “What?” Stephen repeated huskily.

“He believes—and so do I——” Helen answered—“that there is something in this room that will prove his innocence.”

“In this room?” Stephen Pryde’s voice trembled with fear; fear so obvious that only the intensest absorption could have missed it.

“Yes,” Helen said firmly.

Stephen controlled himself with a great effort—it was masterly—“What—what is it?” he forced himself to ask, turning directly to Hugh and looking searchingly into his eyes.

“I don’t know—yet,” Hugh said regretfully. Stephen gave a breath of relief, and sat down; his legs were aching from his mental anxiety and tension. “But,” Hugh went on, “I am certain I can find something that will clear me, if Helen will allow me to search this room.”

Hugh search this room! At that suggestion, panic, such as even yet he had not known, in all these hideous months of hidden panic, caught Stephen Pryde and shook him, man as he was and man-built, as if palsy-stricken. Neither Helen nor Hugh could possibly have overlooked a state so pitiful and so abject, if either had looked at him at that moment. But neither did.

“Allow!” the girl said scornfully, both hands on Hugh’s shoulders. “Allow! Me allow you! You are master here,” she added proudly.

Once more Stephen Pryde commanded himself. It was bravely done. Hugh’s head was bent over Helen—the woman Stephen loved—Hugh’s lips were lingering on her hair. Stephen commanded himself, and spoke with quiet emphasis—

“No—no! You must not do that.”

“Why not?” Helen said sharply, turning a little in Hugh’s arm.

“Don’t you see?” Stephen answered smoothly, his eyes very kind, his voice affectionate and solicitous. “Every moment you stay here, Hugh, you run a great risk. You must get away, at once, to some safe place, and then—I’ll make the search for you. Indeed I intended doing so.”

“No—no—that wouldn’t be right,” Hugh said impulsively, not in the least knowing why he said it. “I don’t know why,” he added slowly, “but that wouldn’t be right.” As he spoke he turned his head and looked over his shoulder almost as if listening to some one from whose prompting he spoke. The movement of his head was unusual and somehow suggested apprehension. And he spoke hesitatingly, automatically, as if some one else threw him the word.

“What are you looking at?” Stephen said uneasily.

Hugh turned back with an awkward laugh. “Ah—um—nothing,” he said lamely.