The wretched man sat helpless in the grip of his terror. Cold puffs of air buffeted his trembling face. A hand of ice lay on his forehead. Afraid of what he almost saw dimly, and clearly sensed now, he hid his face in his hands and waited, unable to move, except as his own abject fear shook him, unable to call for help. And he would have welcomed any human help now—any human companionship.

But such wills as Stephen Pryde’s are neither conquered nor broken by one defeat. Presently he took down his hands, and the uncovered face was again the face of a man.

He was calmer now, and with his wonderful will and the habits of thought of a lifetime he was overcoming his fear. He looked about the big room quickly, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed slightly—a rather mirthless laugh of self-contempt. He got up in another moment, and moved about steadily, turning on the electric lights. Again he laughed as he stood warming his hands before the glow of the gas fire. Clearly he was ashamed of himself for having permitted his nerves to get the better of him and of his commonsense. Yet the quick, stealthy glances he could not refrain from throwing over his shoulder now and then, and an odd apprehensiveness in his bearing, proved that there was still some doubt in his mind—a doubt and a fear of which he could not rid himself—absolutely.

He was still wandering aimlessly about the room when his tired eyes fell on the writing-table. It suggested the missing paper to him again, of course: it always would, whenever he saw it. He went close to the table, dragged there, as it were, and, as they had done before again and again, his eyes traveled to the fire. A thought flashed to his troubled mind. He went eagerly to the fireplace, and kneeling down searched feverishly for some charred fragments of the paper that so threatened him. Nothing could have shown more clearly how unhinged he was. A paper burnt eight months ago would scarcely be traceable, by even one atom, near a fire that had been burning constantly since Helen’s return some days ago, or in a fireplace, or on a hearthrug, that Caroline Leavitt most certainly had had thoroughly cleaned each day since the partial removal of Helen’s taboo had made such cleanly housewifery possible. It had been a crazed thought, bred in an overwrought mind. Often acute mania discloses itself in just some such small irregularity of conduct.

Of course, he found nothing where there could be nothing to find. But it unsettled him again greatly. He rose from his knees and stood a long time deeply troubled, staring vacantly into space.

Presently he looked quickly behind him, but not this time with the nervous tremor of the ghost-ridden, but rather with the trained, skilled investigation of the steel-nerved housebreaker, the quick movement of one who wishes to make sure he is unobserved.

“Afraid of a dead man!” He laughed at the very thought. But the living—ah, that was very much another matter. He was afraid of the living, deadly afraid of his own brother—of poor hunted Hugh—of a slip of a girl, and of every breathing creature that might find, through search or by accident, and disclose, the incriminating document. For it, murder had been in his heart, in the hour he had written it. And because of it, something akin to murder throbbed and sickened in him now.

He looked about the room again and again for some possible hiding-place. Then all at once he looked at the door through which Hugh had gone, and his face grew livid and terrible. Hugh must go. He must not, he should not, search this room and its hideous possibilities again. He must go: he should. If only the boy’d go and go into safety! How gladly he, Stephen, would aid him, and provide for him too. But, if Hugh would not go in that way, why, then he should go in another. Pryde had taken his resolve. He would not waver now.

He rang the bell, and moved to the table, and stood looking down on the notepaper there.

“You rung, sir?” Barker asked.

“Yes. There’s a camp near here, I believe?”

“Just over the hill, sir.”

“Simmons the gardener still lives in the cottage?”

“Yes, sir.” The girl glowed, and was almost inarticulate with eagerness. “But, sir, if you want some one to go over to the camp, sir——”

“That will do,” Pryde told her curtly.

“Very—very good, sir,” she almost sobbed it, and slunk out, disappointed and abashed.

Stephen watched her go impatiently, and then turned back to the table, his face tense and set. He picked up a piece of paper, sat down, dipped a pen in the ink—and then laid the pen down, remembering what had, in all probability, been last written at that table, with ink from this well—perhaps with this penholder! The nib was new, and careful “Aunt Caroline” had had the inkstand cleaned and filled. Stephen sighed and took up the pen. Then he frowned—at the embossed address at the head of the sheet. He tore it off, looked at the waste-paper basket, then at the fire, but neither seemed quite safe enough to share this latest secret of his penmanship. He put the torn-off engraved bit of paper carefully in his pocket, and began to write very slowly, with wonderful care.

The writing was not his own. Versatility in hand-writings had always been the greatest deftness of his versatile hands. “Hugh Pryde, wanted for desertion, is in hiding at Deep Dale. A Friend.” He wrote it relentlessly, his lip curving in scorn at the threadbare pseudonym. Then he gave a long look up at Helen’s portrait still radiant over the mantel. Then a thought of Hugh, and of the boyhood days they had shared, came to him chokingly. He propped his head in his hands, and sat and gazed ruefully at the treachery he had just written. So absorbed was he in his sorry scrutiny that he did not hear a step in the hall, and he jumped a little, woman-like, when his cousin closed the door behind her. With a quick, stealthy movement he folded the sheet of paper and thrust it into his coat “Oh, Helen, it’s you!” he said rather jerkily.

“Hugh is growing very impatient, Stephen,” she said, coming nearer; “will you go to him now?”

“Yes—yes—of course. I was just going. There’s no time to lose; none. I hope he has grown more reasonable.”

“How do you mean?” Helen spoke sharply.

“About leaving here, of course.” His voice was as sharp.

“We both know that he can’t do that yet,” she returned decidedly—“not until——”

Stephen came to her imperiously. “Helen, it’s folly for him to stay.”

“No,” she retorted hotly. “For I am sure, quite sure, we are going to find the proofs we want—and it is only here we can look for them.”

“But if you don’t find them?” he reminded her.

“We will.”

“You haven’t yet,” Stephen told her impatiently.

“In just a little while the way will come to us,” the girl said. “I am sure it will.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will,” her cousin said mendaciously. “But in the meantime the men are searching for Hugh. And, if he doesn’t leave at once, I feel certain they will come here and arrest him. I’m going to him now, to try to persuade him once more to be reasonable.” And he went from the library, his anonymous note in his pocket. Helen made no attempt to dissuade him. His words had troubled her deeply. Ought Hugh indeed to go? She couldn’t say. She could scarcely think.