Shot as he had been, killed instantly, the hand of the
assassin must have performed this act. Then surely this killing had
been no common quarrel, but a planned assassination, the culmination of
some prearranged plot.
This knowledge, while it set my heart throbbing in realization of new
danger, yet served also to stiffen my nerves. What had we blindly
drifted into? What was behind this lawlessness which could make murder
commonplace? What mystery lurked about this haunted, hideous house
where death skulked in the dark? My thought was not so much concerned
with myself, and my own danger, as with that of the young woman whom I
was bound to protect. She had come innocently, driven by desperation,
to play a part she already loathed in this tragedy, and now I alone
stood between her and something too awful to contemplate. Now, before
she awoke I must discover the truth, and thus be prepared to get her
safely away.
I closed the door on the silence, and stole quietly downstairs. There
was no movement, no sound in the great house. The front room, hideous
in its grimy disorder, was vacant, and I opened the front door
noiselessly, and stepped forth into the spectral gray light of the
dawn. The first glimpse about was depressing enough.
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