Evidently the attacking party had concluded that they were wasting their lead and their time in shooting at doors and window-shutters, for as Tom had said, all was now quiet outside. Fifteen minutes, half-an-hour passed, and nothing occurred to alarm or to relieve the tension on the anxious watchers within. At length Dan stole upstairs to reconnoitre.

It was fortunate that he chose the precise moment he did, for as his head emerged above the last stair, he saw that the great shutters at the end of the south corridor were open, and a man stood before the window, evidently on the top rung of a ladder, trying the sash. It was locked to be sure, but at the instant Dan saw him, he raised his fist and smashed it. He was about to leap through the opening, fringed though it was with jagged glass, when Dan aimed his pistol carefully, and fired. There was a cry, and the form at the window fell crashing to the ground below. Dan rushed to the casement, and could hear in the court beneath him the curses and exclamations of the surprised assailants. Quickly he thrust the end of the ladder from the wall, then seizing a fresh pistol from his belt, fired at random into the darkness below. Another cry of pain attested to the fact that his chance shot had taken effect. By this time Tom had rushed to his assistance, and together they barred the window again.

Dan gave a brief account of the incident. "But, for heaven's sake, Tom," he concluded, "get back to the north wing. We are in danger there every moment. I'll watch out here."

As Tom returned to his post in the cold corridor of the north wing, he heard heavy crashes, as of a battering-ram, against the great door that opened into the gallery. A shrill whistle brought Ezra Manners to his assistance. "Watch here!" he commanded. "If the door crashes in, shoot, and shoot to kill; then run into the bar and barricade the door between. I've a plan."

He himself ran into the bar, blew out the candles, and risking perhaps too much on the chance of success, cautiously opened the front door. He could scarcely make out the group at the farther end of the gallery, as he stepped out; but he could hear the resounding crashes against the door into the north hall, each one of which seemed to be the last that even that massive frame could hold out against. Leveling his pistol at the group; he took aim, and fired; snatched another from his pocket, and fired a second time. Again, by good luck, the defender's shots had told. There was a thud on the gallery floor, and the besiegers scurried to cover beyond the courtyard fence. Tom dashed safely back into the house, and slipped the great beam into place.

Upstairs Dan's attention had been attracted by the commotion in front of the inn. He opened a window on to the roof of the gallery, climbed out, and crawled along on his belly till his head just abutted over the eaves. For a few moments, after the firing, he could hear the attackers moving about behind the fence across the courtyard. At length, a couple of them stole across the court and up on to the gallery beneath him. In a moment they returned carrying the dead or wounded comrade; then all of them seemed to go off together up the dark avenue of maples. He waited till they could be heard no more, then crept back into the house and ran down to tell Dan of their temporary withdrawal. For an hour or more the four defenders of the Inn kept themselves occupied parading the corridors and rooms, on the watch for a fresh attack. But nothing happened. They felt no security, however, and would feel none till daylight.

In the silent watching of that night Dan had ample opportunity to reflect upon his extraordinary interview with Madame de la Fontaine. He loved her. Good heavens how he loved her, but—had she been sincere in her refusal at the last to keep the scrap of paper for the possession of which she had so desperately intrigued? Had she decoyed him to the rendezvous in the dark but to betray him to the bandits with whom she was in league? At first it would seem so. And yet the paper was in his possession; and, she it was who had rescued him from the assassin's knife. Where was she now? What had become of her? What was to be the end of this mad night's work? That she was the woman who had accompanied General Pointelle—or the Marechal de Boisdhyver—somehow did not surprise him. And for the time the full import of what that implied did not dawn upon him. But what mattered anything now that he loved her?

He determined at last to reconnoitre again from the roof of the gallery. It still lay in shadow, but it would not be long before the moon, now rising over the eastern hills beyond the Strathsey flooded it with light. In a moment, he had opened the window, was over the sill, and, creeping cautiously along the roof to the ledge, he worked his way toward the great oak at the farther end.

All was still and deserted below as the Inn courtyard would have been in the middle of any winter's night. While he stood peering into the darkness, listening intently, the moon, just showing above the distant tree tops, cast the first rays of its light into the courtyard beneath him. At the instant the figure of a woman stole across the flagged pavement and crept fearfully to the Red Oak. With a strange thrill he recognized Claire de la Fontaine. Reaching the shelter of the great tree, she stooped, gathered a handful of gravel from the road bed, and then cast it boldly at the shutters of the bar, calling softly, "Dan, Dan."

Instantly he replied. "Claire! Is that you? What is it? I am here, above you, on the roof."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, as she looked up startled, and discerned his form leaning over the eaves, "for the love of heaven, my friend, open to me. I am in danger and I must tell you that which is of great importance to you. Mais vite, mon ami. In ten minutes they will return again."

It did not occur to Dan to doubt her. Careless of the risk, he rushed back to the window, climbed in, and in a few seconds had opened the door to the anxious woman without. She seemed physically exhausted as she stepped into the warm bar. Taking her in his arms, he carried her to a chair, and poured out a glass of wine, which she eagerly drank.

"It matters not what I have been doing," she murmured in reply to his questions, "I have but little time to give you my warning. Ecoute. Bonhomme and his men are gone only to carry back their dead and wounded, and to bring cutlasses, and the two or three sailors who were left on the schooner. I have followed them—God knows how—and heard something of their plans. They will make an attack—now, in a moment—in two different places. But these attacks will be shams,—is not that the word?—they will mean nothing. It is the Oak Parlour that they desire to enter. At the window of that so horrible room Bonhomme will try to make an entrance without alarm while the others hold your attention at the front and back of the Inn. Is it that you understand? It is necessary that you are prepared for these sham attacks, but the great danger is Bonhomme. The window in the Oak Parlour is not strong. They have information—recent information—from the Marquis probably,—that it will not be difficult to break in. One of you must conceal himself in the dark and shoot Bonhomme when he enters; you must shoot and shoot to kill, then we will be safe. I have no fear of Monsieur le Marquis. The others—they are brutes—but they will flee. And they know nothing, they do this for money,—ah, mon Dieu, for money which I have furnished!"

For a moment, torn between his love and his deep distrust of this woman, poor Dan stood uncertainly. Suddenly he knelt at her side and clasped his arms about her. "Claire, you are on our side? You swear it."

"Ah, mon Dieu! is it that I deserve this?" she exclaimed bitterly. "Ah! I tell you truth," she cried. "You must believe me—Listen! Are they come already?"

"No, no, there is nothing. But I trust you, I will go."

Suddenly she sprang to her feet. "Let me go with you. It is terrible to me to enter again that room; but I desire to prove myself of honour. Allous, allous!"

"Tom is there."

"Ah! send him here to the bar. But do you come, mon ami. See, I go with you." She rose and forcing herself to the effort, led the way across the bar and into the corridor of the north wing, as if to show him that in sixteen years she had not forgotten.



CHAPTER XX

IN THE OAK PARLOUR

"You know the way?" Dan exclaimed as he caught up with her, and held open the door that led into the old north wing.

"But so well," she replied, catching her breath. "Would to God that I did not!"

"Ah!" he murmured, "I forgot that you have been here before."

They pressed on silently. At the turn of the corridor upon which the Oak Parlour gave, they discerned Tom Pembroke, a weird figure, in the dim light of the tallow dip upon the table, that cast fantastic shadows upon the whitewashed walls.

As he recognized them, he sprang forward in astonishment. "Madame de la Fontaine! Dan! What does this mean?" he cried.

"You know Madame?" Dan replied hastily and in evident confusion. "At great risk she has come to warn us—she is our friend, understand.—She has come to tell us how Bonhomme and his men will attack the Inn."

Tom listened to his explanation with unconcealed dismay. "Good heavens, Dan!" he protested, "You trust this woman? You know she is in league with these ruffians. Do you want us to fall into a trap?"

"No, no, Monsieur Pembroke," interrupted Madame de la Fontaine, "you must listen to me. I understand your fear. But at last you can trust me. I repent that which I have done. Ah, mon Dieu, with what bitterness! And now I desire to do all that is possible to save you. You must trust me."

"I do not—I can not trust you," Tom cried sternly. "Don't go in there, Dan. Don't I beg of you, trust this woman's word. It is a trick."

"Perhaps," said Dan grimly, "but go back. I take the responsibility. I do trust her, I shall trust her—to death. There is no time to lose, man. Go back!"

"What deviltry has bewitched you?" cried Tom passionately. "Already once to-night you have risked our lives by your fool-hardiness,—for the sake of this woman, eh? By gad, man, I begin to see. But I tell you now, I refuse to be a victim to your madness."

"Mais non, Monsieur Pembroke," Claire cried again. "By all that is good and holy, I swear to you, that that which I have said is true. You must go. They will attack the bar and the kitchen. If those places are not defended, there will be danger."

"At any rate," said Dan, "I am going into the Oak Parlour. If you refuse to act with me, barricade the door between the bar and the north wing. If need be, I shall fight alone. Only now we lose time, precious time."

Pembroke looked at him as if he had gone mad, then shrugging his shoulders he turned back into the bar, whistling for Jesse and Ezra as he did so.

For a moment, glancing after Tom's retreating figure, shaken to his soul by conflicting emotions, Dan stood irresolute.

"But come," said Madame de la Fontaine, touching his arm. Again like the weird genius of this strange night she led the way on down the shadowy hall, and paused only when her hand rested upon the knob of the door into the Oak Parlour. "It is here," she said simply.

As Dan reached her side, she opened the door. The light of the candle down the hallway did not penetrate the gloom of the disused room. A musty smell as of cold stagnant air came strong to their nostrils, and Dan felt, as they crossed the threshold together, that he was entering a place where no life had been for a long long time, a place full of dead nameless horrors.

The woman by his side was trembling violently. He put his arm about her to reassure her, and there shot through him a sensation of strange and terrible joy to be with her alone in this darkness and danger. For the moment he was exulting that for her sake he had risked his honour, that for her sake now he was risking life itself. He bent his head to hers.

"No! no!—not here!" she whispered hoarsely, but yet clinging to him with shaking hands. "It is so cold, so dark. I have fear," she murmured.

"It is like a tomb," he said.

"The tomb of my hopes, of my youth," she breathed softly.

"Shall I strike a light?"

"No, no,—no light, I implore you. Ecoute! What is it that I hear?"

"I hear nothing. It is the wind in the Red Oak outside."

"But listen!"

"It is an owl hooting."

Suddenly she drew her hand from his, and he could hear her moving swiftly about. "All is as it used to be?" she asked.

"Precisely," he answered; "nothing has been changed."

"Here is the cabinet," she said, from across the room. "I can feel the lion's head. It is opposite to the window and the moonlight will stream in when the casement is opened, but if I crouch low I shall not be seen. Bien! And you, mon ami? Tell me, is the old escritoire still to the left of the door?" Now she was back at his side once again.

"The escritoire?" he repeated.

"The little table where one writes. Ah! yes, it is here. See, behind this, mon ami, shall you hide yourself. The moonlight will not reach here—and it is so arranged that you will see plainly any one that appears at the window. When the casement is opened, you will shoot, will you not, and shoot to kill?"

"Yes, I will shoot," said Dan, his voice trembling.

"You promise me?" she cried in a tense whisper, as she grasped his arm and held it tight in her grip.

"I tell you, yes."

"You must not fail."

"No. Shall I shoot at any one who opens?"

"Any one?—it will be Bonhomme,—no other."

Suddenly there came, from the front and the rear of the Inn, at the same instant it seemed, the sharp staccato of a fusilade of pistol shots, and the lumbering blows as of beams being thrust at distant doors.

"They are come!" she whispered, "hide." Dan could hear the swish of her garments as she rapidly glided across the room to the old cabinet, then he turned and crouched low behind the writing desk that she had chosen for his place of concealment. He knelt there motionless, a cocked pistol clenched in his right hand. His breath seemed to have stopped, but his heart was pounding as though it must burst through his breast. How could he shoot down in cold blood a fellow man? The horror of it crowded out all other impressions, sensations fears. He could fight, risk his life, but to pull the trigger of that pistol when the casement should open seemed to him an impossibility. He would wait, grapple with him, fight as men should.

Suddenly a ray of moonlight fell across the dark floor. Dan, looking up, seemed frozen by horror. The shutters had opened, the casement swung back noiselessly, and there in the opening, sharply outlined against the moonlight-flooded night, was the great black hulk of Captain Bonhomme.

For a moment he stood there irresolute, listening intently. Dan was fascinated, motionless, held as in a vice by the horror of the thing.

Suddenly Bonhomme moved his head to one side as if to listen more acutely. As he did so, the ray of moonlight fell upon the cabinet, fell upon Claire de la Fontaine, upon something that she held in an outstretched hand that gleamed.

"Nom de Dieu!" There was the flash and crack of a pistol, a sharp cry, and the great figure fell back and sank out of sight.

With that Dan sprang forward, reckless of danger, and ran to the window. He heard without the confused sounds as of persons scurrying to cover, saw their forms dash across the moonlit courtyard, into the shadows of the trees and outhouses. Beneath him on the floor of the gallery was something horrible and still.

Almost instantly Claire de la Fontaine was by his side, and as regardless of danger as he, she was calling sharply, calling men by their names. Her hair had been loosened and fell over her shoulders in black waves, her dark eyes flashed with excitement and passion, and her face, strangely pale, in the silver moonlight, was set in stern harsh lines. Even then this vision of her tragic beauty thrilled the man at her side.

But she was as unconscious of him as she was of her danger. With hand uplifted she called by name the desperados, who had taken shelter in the darkness and to those who now came running from front and rear where their attacks had been unsuccessful.

Appalled, spell-bound by the vision, even as Dan was, they stopped, and stood listening mutely to the torrent of words that she poured forth,—vehement French of which Dan had no understanding.

At last, ending the frightful tension of the scene, two of the men came forward, crept up to the lifeless body of Bonhomme, and grasping it by head and feet, carried it away, across the courtyard, into the darkness of the avenue of maples. One by one, still mysteriously silent, the others of the gang followed, till at length the last one had disappeared into the gloom. Weird silence fell once more upon the Inn.

It was only then that Madame de la Fontaine turned to Dan. "They will come no more," she said in a strained unnatural voice. "We are saved, safe.... I have proved, is it not so?—my honour, my love."

With the words she sank at his feet, just as Tom, candle in hand, appeared in the doorway.



CHAPTER XXI

THE TREASURE

Owing doubtless to the death of Bonhomme and to the orders given in no uncertain tones by Madame de la Fontaine, the bandits from the schooner in the cove did not make a further effort to attack the Inn that night. There was no rest, however, for Madame de la Fontaine, after her heroic exploit in the Oak Parlour, had swooned completely away. They carried her to the couch in Mrs. Frost's parlour, and, awkwardly enough, did what could be done for her by men. It was over an hour before they succeeded in restoring her to consciousness, and when they did so, she awoke to delirium and fever. Distracted by anxiety and by their helplessness, at the first streak of dawn, Dan started for town to get a doctor, and Ezra Manners volunteered to go to the Red Farm and bring back Mrs. Frost, Nancy, and the maids.

About six o'clock in the morning the women folk returned to the Inn. But the briefest account of the attack was given them, though they were told in no uncertain terms of Madame de la Fontaine's heroic action in coming to warn them and of her courageous shot at the leader. Then Mrs. Frost and Nancy turned all their attention to the sick woman, caring for her as tenderly and devotedly as if she were their own. Half-an-hour later Dan returned from Monday Port with the family doctor, a grave silent old gentleman, in whose skill and discretion they trusted. After making an examination of his patient, he nodded his head encouragingly; gave a few directions to Mrs. Frost, and then left, promising to return later in the morning with medicines and supplies.

At last, utterly worn out, the four men threw themselves on their beds and slept from sheer exhaustion. The sun was high in the sky when they came down stairs again and found Nancy waiting for them, and a smoking breakfast ready on the table. After greeting them, she pointed to the window, across the fields, almost bare of snow now and gleaming in the morning sunlight, to the bright waters of the cove. "See!" she cried, "the schooner has disappeared."

They both looked. "By Jove, it has!" exclaimed Tom, rushing to the other side of the room, and peering out at the shipless sea. "Heigho! that's a relief. Pray God we've seen the last of her. The Marquis gone, the schooner gone,—we three together once more! Perhaps we shall begin to live again. Ah!" he added more softly, glancing with sudden sympathy at Dan's white drawn face, "I forgot the poor woman across the hall."

Dan turned aside to hide his emotion, for though a load of anxiety had been lifted from his heart by the vanishing of The Southern Cross, he was sick with fear for the issue of the illness that had stricken down the woman he loved,—the woman who had proved her love for him by so terrible and so tragic a deed.

As though aware that for the moment they were best left together alone, Nancy slipped away into the kitchen.

"You love her, Dan?" asked Tom simply.

"Yes, Tom, with all my heart and soul. I staked my honour, my life, on her sincerity. And how she has proved that we were right to trust her! It can't be—she mustn't die—I couldn't bear it!"

"She'll be all right, old fellow, don't worry; trust to your mother and Nance. It is only the shock of the terrible things she went through last night. Come on, we must take something to eat. Here is Nancy back again."

There was no doubt of the fact, The Southern Cross had sailed away, vanished in the night as mysteriously as a week before she had appeared in the Strathsey and found moorings in the Cove. They did not count on the certainty of her not reappearing, however; and that night and for many nights thereafter the Inn was securely barricaded and a watch was kept, but neither then nor ever did The Southern Cross spread her sails in those waters again. She and her crew disappeared from their lives as completely as from the seas that stretched around the coast of Deal.

Tom at once was for making a search in the Oak Parlour for the hidden treasure, but for the time Dan had no heart for the undertaking. He urged delay at least until Madame de la Fontaine had recovered; and as for Nancy she would not hear of it.

"I can't bear to think of it,—of the trouble, the crime, the suffering of which it has been the cause. When our poor lady recovers, she will tell us all we need to know. I dread the Oak Parlour. I would not go into that room for anything in the world. Nor, believe me, Tom, could Dan do so now. You have guessed, haven't you, that he loves Madame de la Fontaine?"

"Of course, dearest; poor fellow! he betrays his love by every word and act. But good heaven, Nance, he couldn't marry her!"

"No—I don't know. I suppose not. But Dan will do as he will. To oppose him now would only make him the more wretched."

"Does your mother know?"

"No, and it is best she should not. I don't think she has the faintest suspicion."

"Well, I suppose we had better let things rest awhile;" Tom assented, "but I swear I would like to get at the Oak Parlour and tear the secret out of it."

"We must wait a bit, Tom dear. Let's just be glad now of what we have and are."

And with that he drew her toward him and pressed for a definite answer to the question which so deeply concerned their future.

"When Madame has recovered, when we know all and the mystery is solved," she replied; then she added inconsequently, "I wonder if we shall ever hear of the old Marquis again."

"I wonder too," Tom exclaimed. "Though he has sailed away on The Southern Cross, I doubt if he will willingly leave the treasure behind him."

"That dreadful treasure, Tom," cried Nancy. "I wish to goodness that the Marquis had it and might keep it always. We have each other."

The evening of the second day after the terrible night of the attack, as Dan was entering the Inn from his work outside, he saw Madame de la Fontaine standing on the gallery under the Red Oak. It was the dusk of a mild pleasant day. She was clad still in her soft grey gown with furs about her waists and neck, and a grey scarf over her head. But there was something infinitely pathetic to him in the listlessness of her attitude, in the expression of a deep and melancholy that had come into her face.

He stole swiftly to her side, and taking her hand in his pressed it to his lips, with a gesture that was as reverent as it was tender. For a moment something of the old brightness returned to her face as she bent her clear gaze upon his bowed head.

"You love me, Dan?" she murmured.

"You know I love you," he whispered passionately.

"Yes, I believe that you do," she said simply. "I shall always be thankful that I have won a good man's love." But suddenly she withdrew her hand, as the door of the bar opened. "See, here is Mademoiselle Nancy. She is coming for me: she is to be with me to-night. There is much for me to do."

His heart surged within him; for he knew that in her simple words there was the tragic note of farewell; but he could not speak, he could not plead from that sad and broken woman for a passion that he knew but too well she could never give. He knew that she would leave him on the morrow, that his protests would be vain;—nay,—he would not even utter them! With the gathering of the darkness about the old Inn, he felt that the light in his heart was being obscured forever.

The evening passed, the night. Morning came, and Madame de la Fontaine, accompanied by Nancy, left the Inn at the Red Oak for Coventry. There remained to Dan of his brief and tragic passion but one letter, which Tom handed to him that morning, and which, with despairing heart, he read and re-read a hundred times.

"Mon cher ami:

"You would forgive that I do not know well how to express myself as I desire, if you could read my heart. I bade you good-bye to-night under the Red Oak, tree for me of such tragic and such beautiful memories. I could not say farewell otherwise, dear friend, nor could you. We have loved sincerely, have we not? We will remember that in days to come; you will remember it even in the happier days to come that I pray God to grant you. I know all that you would say, my friend, but it cannot be. I must vanish from your life, be gone as completely as though I had never entered it. I love you deeply, tenderly, but I could not be to you what I know that now you wish. All the past forbids. The very tragedy that proved to you that I was worthy of your trust forbids. It is my only justification that I saved your lives, dear friend; but oh how bitterly I ask pardon of God for what has been done! Then also, dearest friend, my heart is no longer capable to bear passion, but only to feel great tenderness. I could not say these things, and yet they must be written. I cannot go with them unsaid. Certain other things must be told you in justice to all.

"The story I told you on the schooner that day was largely truth. The General Pointelle, who was at the Inn at the Red Oak in 1814, was in reality the Marechal de Boisdhyver, the father of your foster-sister Nancy. She is truly Eloise de Boisdhyver. The Marechal returned to France to support the Emperor, as he wrote to madame your good mother; and he fell, as I told you, on the field of Waterloo. Admitting the importance of his mission, admitting my ambiguous relation to him (indefensible as it was), to have left the child as he did was an act of kindness. In truth the treasure concealed in the Oak Parlour is considerable, and it was always my purpose to return, but the necessary directions for finding it were not entrusted to me, but to the Marquis Marie-Anne, whom I didn't meet until many years after Waterloo. Then I was induced by the Marquis,—your old Marquis—to provide the money for the miserable enterprise, of which we know the tragic result. From the first I was uncertain about the method we adopted; and then soon after our arrival here, from a hundred little indications, I became convinced that Bonhomme was prepared to betray us, once we secured the treasure. As for the Marquis, I suppose that he sailed away on the schooner. You need fear him no longer. It was he, I am convinced, that conveyed to them the information of the loosened casement in the Oak Parlour, and unwittingly arranged for his own undoing and our salvation. At all events he will have realized now that he has hopelessly lost the fight. As for the treasure, by right it belongs to Eloise, who should not disdain to use it. I enclose a transcription of the other half of the torn scrap of paper, which will supplement the directions in your possession.

"And as for me, my friend, I shall seek a shelter in my own country apart from the world in which I have lived so to little purpose and for the most part so unhappily. Believe me, so it is best. My heart is too full for me to express all that I feel for you.

"Dear, dear friend, do not render me the more unhappy to know that my brief friendship with you shall have harmed your life. Your place is in the world, to take part in the life of your own country, not, dear Dan, to waste youth and energy in the fruitless desolation of this beautiful Deal, not above all to grieve for a woman who was unworthy.

"I commend you to God, and I shall never forget you.

"CLAIRE DE LA FONTAINE."

It was with a heavy heart that Dan consented later in the morning to Tom's proposal that they force at last the secret of the Oak Parlour. He got the torn scrap of paper which he had found,—such ages ago it seemed, though it was scarcely a week,—in the old cabinet, and gave it to Tom, with the copy of the other half which Madame de la Fontaine had enclosed in her letter of farewell. The copy in Madame de la Fontaine's handwriting did not dovetail exactly into the jagged edges of the original portion, so that it was some time before they could get it into position for reading. But at last it was pasted together on a large bit of cardboard, and Tom, with the aid of a dictionary, succeeded in making a translation, which Dan took down.

"Learning of the attempt of my Emperor to regain his glorious throne, I leave these hospitable shores to offer my sword to his cause. In case I do not return, the person having instructions for the discovery of this paper, which I tear in two parts, will find herein the necessary directions for the finding of my hidden treasure. This treasure, bullion, jewels, and coins, is concealed in a secret chamber in this Inn at the Red Oak. This secret chamber will be entered from the Oak Parlour. The hidden door is released by a spring beneath the hand of the lady in the picture nearest the fireplace on the north side of the room. A panel slides back revealing the entrance. Instructions as to the deposition of the treasure will be found in the golden casket therewith.

"FRANCOIS DE BOISDHYVER."

"Well?" said Tom, "the instructions are definite enough. Now we can put them to the test. Let's get to work at once. Wait a second till I get some wood, and well make a fire in the Oak Parlour." He filled his arms with logs from the bin under the settle in the bar, while Dan got the key for the north wing.

Soon they were at the end of the old hall. It was with an effort that Dan brought himself to enter the room, for there flashed into his mind the vision of the last time he was there,—the cold silver moonlight, the dark burly form at the casement, the white drawn face of Claire de la Fontaine, and then the sharp flash and crack of the pistol.

But with an impatient gesture, as if to thrust aside these tragic memories, he stepped across the threshold, and kneeling at the hearth, took the wood from Tom's arms and began to lay a fire. In the meantime his friend fumbled at the window casements, opened them, and let in the light of day and the pure air of out-of-doors. Soon the fire was crackling cheerily on the great andirons and casting its bright reflection on the dark oak panelling of the walls. Nothing had been disturbed—the old cabinet with the lions' heads stood opposite the window; the little escritoire, behind which he had crouched on the fatal night, was pushed back against the wall; the chairs, the tables, thick with dust, stood just as they had been standing for many years.

"Do you realize, Tom," Dan said, as they stood side by side watching the blazing logs, "that it is sixteen years since General Pointelle stayed at the Inn and used this room? And the treasure, if there is any treasure, has been mouldering here all that time."

"Let's get at it," said Tom. "I confess this place gives me the creeps. Have you got my translation of the directions?"

"Yes, here it is." Dan spread out the bit of paper on one of the tables. "'The hidden door is released by a spring beneath the hand of the lady in the picture nearest the fireplace on the north side of the room.' Ah! that must be it—that old landscape let into the panel there." He walked nearer and examined it closely.

It was a simple landscape, a garden in the foreground, forest and hills in the distance; and in the midst a lady in Eighteenth century costume caressing the head of a greyhound. It was beautifully mellow in tone, and might well have been a production of Gainsborough, though the Frosts had preserved no such tradition.

Dan began to fumble, according to the directions, beneath the hand of the stately lady, pressing vigourously here and there with thumb and forefinger. "What's that?" he cried suddenly. A faint click, as of a spring in action, had sounded sharp in the stillness, but apparently with no other effect. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe there is something behind it. You heard the click? See there! the panel's opened a bit at the side." Surely enough, there was a long crack on the right—the length of the picture. "Here, let's push."

Careless of the landscape, they put their hands upon the panel and pressed with all their force to the left. It yielded slowly, slipping back side-wise into the wall, and revealed a narrow opening, beyond which was a little circular stairway, leading apparently to some chamber above.

"Here's the entrance to the secret chamber all right," Dan exclaimed. "Let's see where it goes to." He climbed in and started up the winding flight of stairs, Tom close behind him. About half way up the height of the Oak Parlour he came to a door. "Can't go any farther," he called to Tom.

"What's the matter?"

"There's a door here; it leads, evidently, into some little room between the Oak Parlour and the bedroom next. Who would ever have guessed it?"

"Can't you open the door; is it locked?"

Dan fumbled about till he found and turned the knob. "No," he answered. "I've opened it. But it's pitch dark inside. Get a candle."

He waited anxiously while Tom went below again to get a candle, a strange feeling of dread creeping over him now that at last he was about to penetrate the secret which had been of such tragic purport in his life. In a moment Tom had returned, a candle in either hand, one of which he handed to Dan, and together they entered the secret chamber. It was a little room scarcely six feet square, without light, and so far as they could see without ventilation. As they stood looking about the candle flickered strangely casting weird shadows over the walls. Suddenly they saw at their feet a tiny golden casket, and then, in a corner of the room a row of small cloth bags, several of which had been ripped open, so that a stream of golden coin flowed out upon the floor. Nearby stood another little golden chest; and Tom, lifting the lid, started back astonished. For there sparkling and glowing in the candle light as though they were living moving things, lay a heap of precious gems—diamonds, rubies, opals, sapphires, amethysts, that might have been the ransom of a princess.

"It's a treasure right enough!" cried Dan. "But what's this?" He turned to the opposite corner where there lay a heap of something covered with a great black cloth. They approached gingerly, and Dan stooped and picked up an edge of the covering. "It's a cloak," he exclaimed. Startled, he paused for a moment; then quickly pulled the cloak away, uncovering, to their horror, a lifeless body.

"Tom!" Dan cried in a ghastly whisper. "A man has died here."

Tom held the candle over the gruesome heap. "But who?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

For reply Dan pointed significantly to the cloak which he had dropped on the floor.

"What!" cried Tom. "Good God! the old Marquis! But how? I don't understand—" he added, staring blankly.

"He must have come here the afternoon he pretended to leave the Inn, must have learned the secret passage somehow. It was he who loosened the casement in the Oak Parlour that night, and got his message to Bonhomme. He was waiting here for him. Can't you see it all—the panel slipped back; he couldn't open it again; Bonhomme didn't come; he was caught like a rat in a trap."

"My God, what a fate!"

"We can't leave his body here. We must give it decent burial, you and I, Tom, for we can't let this be known."

"And the treasure?"

"Ah! there was treasure, wasn't there? Wait, let's see what is in the little casket." He picked up the golden casket that they had stepped over as they entered, and raised the lid. A single scrap of paper was inside on the little velvet cushion, inscribed in the same handwriting as the paper of directions, "Pour Eloise de Boisdhyver."

"But come," Tom whispered, holding back the door, "I can't stand this any longer. We'll come back again, and do what must be done. Come, Dan."

Dan gave a last look into the strange horrible little room, then he followed his friend. They closed the door behind them and crept slowly down the narrow winding stairs to the Oak Parlour, leaving the treasure in the secret chamber and the Marquis guarding it in the silence and darkness of death. What had been so basely striven for was sorrily won at last.

THE END.