fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered something in her

ear, and then, pushing her back into the room from whence she had come, he

walked towards me again with the lamp in his hand.


“‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for

a few minutes,’ said he, throwing open another door. It was a quiet,

little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on which

several German books were scattered. Colonel Stark laid down the lamp on the

top of a harmonium beside the door. ‘I shall not keep you waiting an

instant,’ said he, and vanished into the darkness.


“I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance of

German I could see that two of them were treatises on science, the others being

volumes of poetry. Then I walked across to the window, hoping that I might

catch some glimpse of the country-side, but an oak shutter, heavily barred, was

folded across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old clock

ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly

still. A vague feeling of uneasiness began to steal over me. Who were these

German people, and what were they doing living in this strange, out-of-the-way

place? And where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was all

I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no idea. For that matter,

Reading, and possibly other large towns, were within that radius, so the place

might not be so secluded, after all. Yet it was quite certain, from the

absolute stillness, that we were in the country. I paced up and down the room,

humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling that I was

thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee.


“Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter

stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman was standing in the

aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the yellow light from my lamp