The house was quiet at last. When these mysterious things had first happened, fear and alarm had driven sleep from every eye, and many was the long night the whole family had spent, huddled round the fire till gray morn chased their fears away.

But as the inhabitants of a beleaguered city learn to sleep through a heavy bombardment, so had the Ravenspurs come to meet these horrors with grim tenacity. They were all upstairs now, behind locked doors, with a hope that they might meet again on the morrow. Only Geoffrey was up waiting for his uncle Ralph.

He came at length so noiselessly that Geoffrey was startled, and motioned to him that he should follow him without a word.

They crept like ghosts along the corridor until they reached a room with double doors at the end of the picture gallery. Generations ago this room had been built for a Ravenspur who had developed dangerous homicidal mania, and in this room he had lived virtually a prisoner for many years.

After they had closed the two doors, a heavy curtain was drawn over the inner one, and Ralph fumbled his way to the table and lighted a candle.

"Now we can talk," he said quietly, "but not loud. Understand that the matter is to be a profound secret between us and that not a soul is to know of it; not even Vera."

"I have already given my promise," said Geoffrey.

"I know. Still there is no harm in again impressing the fact on your mind. Geoffrey, you are about to see strange things, things that will test your pluck and courage to the uttermost."

Geoffrey nodded. With the eagerness of youth he was ready.

"I will do anything you ask me," he replied. "I could face any danger to get at the bottom of this business."

"You are a good lad. Turn the lamp down very low and then open the window. Have you done that?"

"Yes, I can feel the cold air on my face."

Ralph crossed to the window and, putting out his hand, gave the quaint mournful call of the owl. There was a minute's pause and then came the answering signal. A minute or two later and a man's head and shoulders were framed in the open window. Geoffrey would have dashed forward, but Ralph held him back.

"Not so impatient," he said. "This is a friend."

Geoffrey asked no questions, though he was puzzled to know why the visitor did not enter the castle by the usual way. At Ralph's request he closed the window and drew the heavy curtains and the lamp was turned up again.

"My nephew," said Ralph. "A fine young fellow, and one that you and I can trust. Geoffrey, this is my old friend, Sergius Tchigorsky."

Geoffrey shook hands with Tchigorsky. To his intense surprise he saw the face of the stranger was disfigured in the same way as that of his uncle. Conscious that his gaze was somewhat rude he looked down. Tchigorsky smiled. Very little escaped him and to him the young man's mind was as clear as a brook.

"My appearance startles you," he said. "Some day you will learn how your uncle and myself came to be both disfigured in this terrible way. That secret will be disclosed when the horror that haunts this house is lifted."

"Will it ever be lifted, sir?" Geoffrey asked.

"We can do so at any time," Tchigorsky replied in his deep voice. "You may be surprised to hear that we can place our hand on the guilty party at a moment's notice and bring the offender to justice. Your eyes ask me why we do not do so instantly. We refrain, as the detectives refrain from arresting one or two of a big gang of swindlers, preferring to spread their nets till they have them all in their meshes. There are four people in this business, and we must take the lot of them, or there will be no peace for the house of Ravenspur. You follow me?"

"Perfectly," Geoffrey replied. "An enemy so marvelously clever must not be treated lightly. Do you propose to make the capture to-night?"

Ralph Ravenspur laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh and was mirthless. His scarred face was full of scornful amusement.

"Not to-night or to-morrow night, or for many nights," he said. "We have all the serpent wisdom of the Old World against us, the occult knowledge of the East allied to the slippery cunning that Western education gives. There will be many dangers before we have finished, and the worst of these dangers will fall upon you."

Ralph brought his hand down with a sudden clap on his nephew's shoulders. Tchigorsky regarded him long and earnestly as if he would read his very soul.

"You will do," he said curtly. "I am satisfied you will do and I never made a mistake in my estimate of a man yet. Ravenspur, are you ready?"

"Ay, ay. I have been ready this long time."

The lamp was extinguished and list slippers were donned, and with no more provision than a box of wax matches they left the room. Instructed by Ralph Ravenspur, they fell behind him, each holding by the coat-tail of the other. Down the corridor they went, down the stairs, along stone-flagged passages until they reached the vast series of cellars and vaults over which the castle was built.

There were many of these with twists and turns and low passages; the place was large enough to conceal a big force of troops. And yet, though it was pitchy dark and intricate as a labyrinth, the blind man made no error; he did not hesitate for a moment.

Well as Geoffrey imagined that he knew the castle, he was fain to confess his utter ignorance alongside the knowledge displayed by the blind guide.

Ralph pulled up suddenly and began to speak.

"I brought you here to-night, Geoffrey," he said, "so that you might have the first lesson in the task that lies before you. Listen! can you hear anything?"

"I hear the roar of the sea, the waves grating on the shingle."

"Yes, because we are on a level with the sea. There are deeper vaults yet, which you will see presently, and they are below the level of the sea. Our ancestors used to place their prisoners there, and, by removing a kind of sluice, allowed the tide to come in and drown them. You see, those walls are damp."

They were, indeed. As a wax vesta flared up, the dripping stones and the long white fungi gave the place a weird appearance. Then Ralph dropped suddenly, extinguished his match, and drew his companions behind a row of cupboard-like timbers.

"Somebody is coming," he whispered.

The others could hear nothing. But the blind man's powers of hearing were abnormal. It seemed a long time before the sound of footsteps could be heard. Then a figure in white, a fair figure with long shining hair hanging down her back and carrying a taper, crept down the steps.

An exclamation trembled on Geoffrey's lips – an exclamation of alarm, of admiration, of the utmost astonishment. But Ralph laid a hand on his mouth. The figure passed into the vault beyond.

"It was Marion!" said Geoffrey in a thrilling whisper. "And yet it did not look like Marion. She seemed so dreamy; so far off."

"She was walking in her sleep," Ralph said quietly.

"But the danger of it, the danger!"

"My dear boy, there is no danger at all. Blind as I am, I found out this peculiarity of Marion's directly I returned. Danger to her! I would not have a hair of her head injured to save Ravenspur from destruction. Geoffrey, it is through Marion and Marion alone, that we are going to solve the mystery."

"Ay," Tchigorsky muttered, "that is so."

Ralph raised his hand to impose silence. The soft returning footfalls were clear to the ears. Then, rigid, unbending, with dilated eyes, Marion passed, the flash of the lantern behind her.

"Come," said Ralph, "let us return. A good night's work, Tchigorsky!"

"Ay," Tchigorsky murmured; "a good night's work, indeed."

CHAPTER XIII
REELING OFF THE THREAD

It was fortunate for all parties that Geoffrey was possessed of strong nerves, or he would have been certain to betray himself and them.

Since he had left school at the time when the unseen terror first began to oppress Ravenspur, he had known nothing of the world; he had learnt nothing beyond the power to suffer silently and the power of love.

To confide in him was, perhaps, a daring thing on the part of Ralph Ravenspur. But, then, Ralph knew his world only too deeply and too well, and he rarely made a mistake in a man. All the same, he followed as closely as possible the meeting between Marion and Geoffrey the following morning.

Marion came down a little pale, a little quieter and more subdued than usual. Geoffrey rallied her in the spirit of mingled amusement and affection that he always assumed to Marion. His voice was natural and unaffected. Ralph was grimly satisfied. He knew now that his ally had brains as well as courage.

"I believe you have been sitting up writing poetry," Geoffrey laughed.

"Indeed, I had a very long night's rest," Marion responded. "And I can't imagine why I look so pale and washed-out this morning!"

"Bad dreams and an evil conscience," Vera suggested demurely.

Marion laughed. Usually at meal times the young people had the conversation entirely to themselves. Sometimes the elders joined in; sometimes they listened and smiled at the empty badinage; usually they were wrapped in their gloomy thoughts. Ralph's face had the expression of a stone idol, yet he followed every word that was said with intense and vivid interest.

"Bad dreams, indeed," Marion admitted. "They were with me all night. It seemed to me that I was wandering about all night looking for something. And I had nothing on but my nightdress. In India as a child I used to walk in my sleep. I hope I am not going to do that again."

Marion laughed and passed on to another subject. Curiously enough, she seemed to shrink from speaking of her life in India. Of her dead parents she would discourse freely; of her own early life she said nothing. It had always seemed to Geoffrey that Marion's childhood had been unhappy. There was an air of gentle melancholy when her features were in repose, an air far older than her years.

Meanwhile Ralph had been following all this keenly. He appeared to be interested in his breakfast. The streaming sunshine filtered through the great stained glass windows full upon his scarred face; his head was bent down upon his plate.

But the man's mind was at work. He had his opportunity to speak to Geoffrey presently.

"You will do," he said approvingly. "Keep up that easy, cheerful manner of yours. Whatever happens, try to ignore it; try to keep up that irresponsible boyish manner. You will find it invaluable in disarming suspicion later, when one false move may dash all our delicate plans to the ground."

"I will do anything you require of me, uncle."

"That is right; that is the spirit in which to approach the problem. And, remember, that what may appear to you to be the most trivial detail may prove to be of the utmost importance to our case. For instance, I am going to ask you to do something now that may produce big results. I want you to get your grandfather's permission to use the top room over the tower."

"But what can I want it for? It is useless to me."

"At present, yes; but later it will be useful. You require it for an observatory. You are going to try to repair the big telescope. You are enthusiastic on the subject, you are hot-foot to get to work at once. There is nothing but lumber there."

"Boxes belonging to Marion, uncle. Cases that have remained unpacked ever since she came over from India."

Ralph smiled in his most inscrutable manner.

"Mere trifles," he croaked. "But, there, I am one of the men who deny there are such things as trifles. You may lose a pin out of your watch, a trifle hardly visible to the eye a yard off. And yet your costly watch, with its marvelous mechanism, is useless without that 'trifle.' Now go."

An hour later and Geoffrey was busy in the corridor with the big telescope, the telescope that nobody had troubled about at Ravenspur for many years. Geoffrey, in his shirt sleeves, was polishing up the brasses. Vera was with her mother somewhere.

There had been no trouble in getting permission from Rupert Ravenspur. It was doubtful if he even heard Geoffrey's request. Everything the young people asked they got, as a rule. Why not, when a day might cut off their lives and their little pleasures for all time! The head of the family was fast becoming a fatalist. So far as he was concerned, there was no hope that the terror would ever lift. He had escaped once; the next time the foe would not fail. But there would be rest in the grave.

Marion found Geoffrey in the corridor. The yellow and purple lights from the leaded windows filled the place with a soft, warm glow. Marion's dark hair was shot with purple; her white dress, as she lounged in a window seat, was turned to gold. She formed a wonderfully fair and attractive picture, if Geoffrey had only heeded it. But, then, Geoffrey had no eyes for any one but Vera.

"What are you going to do?" Marion asked. "Read your fortune in the stars? Get inspiration from the heavenly bodies to combat the power of darkness?"

"I'm going to have a shot at astronomy again," Geoffrey replied, in his most boyish and most enthusiastic manner. "I was considered a bit of swell at it at school. And when I saw this jolly old telescope lying neglected here, I made up my mind to polish my knowledge. I'm going to set it up in the tower turret."

"But it is packed full of boxes – my boxes."

"Well, there is plenty of room for those boxes elsewhere – in fact, we've got space enough to give every box a room to itself. There is an empty bedroom just below. Presently I'm going to shunt all your lumber in there."

Marion nodded approvingly. Of course if Geoffrey said a thing it was done. He might have turned the castle upside down and the girls would have aided and abetted him.

"I should like to be present when those boxes are moved," she said. "There are hundreds of rare and curious things that belonged to my mother – things that the British Museum would long to possess. Remember, my ancestors were rulers in Tibet for thousands of years. Some day I'll show you my curios. But don't begin to move those boxes till I am ready to assist."

"I shall not be ready for an hour, Marion."

"Very well, then, I shall be back in an hour, astronomer."

Geoffrey finished his work presently. Then he ran up to the turret-room and opened the door. The place was dusty and dirty to a degree, and filled with packing-cases. Apparently they were all of foreign make – wooden boxes, with queer inscriptions, lacquered boxes, and one fragile wooden box clamped and decorated in filigree brass.

"A queer thing," Geoffrey murmured. "And old, very old, too."

"Over a thousand years. There is only one more like it in the world, and no Christian eyes save four have ever looked upon it. When you take that box from the room, see that it is the last, Geoffrey. You hear?"

It was Ralph who spoke. He had appeared silently and mysteriously as usual. He spoke calmly, but his twitching lips were eloquent of suppressed excitement.

"Very well," Geoffrey said carelessly. He was getting used to these strange quick appearances and these equally strange requests. "It shall be as you desire, uncle."

Ralph nodded. He gave a swift turn of his head as if looking for some one unconsciously, then he crossed the room and stooped down beside the brass-bound box, which was at the bottom of a pile of packages. His long fingers felt over the quaint brasses.

"A most remarkable-looking pattern," said Geoffrey.

"It is not a pattern at all," Ralph replied.

"The quaint filigree work is a language – the written signs of old Tibet, only you are not supposed to know that; indeed, I only found it out myself a few days ago. It had been a long search; but, as I can only see with my fingers, you can understand that. But this is part of the secret."

Geoffrey was profoundly interested.

"Tell me what the language says?" he asked.

"Not now – perhaps not at all. It is a ghastly and terrible thing, and even your nerves are not fireproof. There is only one thing I have to ask you before I efface myself for the present. When you take up that box to carry it down stairs it is to slip through your fingers. You are to drop it."

"I am to drop that box. Is there anything else?"

"Not for the present. You are smiling; I feel that you are smiling. For Heaven's sake take this seriously; take everything that I say seriously, boy. Oh, I know what is in your mind – I am going in a clumsy way to get something. I might so easily get what I require by a little judicious burglary. That is what your unsophisticated mind tells you. Later you will know better."

Ralph turned cheerfully round and left the room. He paused in the doorway. "Don't forget," he said, "that my visit here is a secret. In fact, everything is a secret until I give you permission to make it public."

This time he left. Geoffrey had managed to drag one or two of the boxes away before Marion appeared. She reproached him gently that he had not waited for her. There might be spooks and bogies in those packages capable of harm.

"I dare say there are," Geoffrey laughed. "But you were such a long time. Every girl seems to imagine that an hour is like a piece of elastic – you can stretch it out as long as you like. At any rate I have done no harm. As far as I can judge there's only one good thing here."

"And what is that?" Marion asked.

Geoffrey pointed to the floor.

"That one," he said. "The queer brass-bound box at the bottom."

CHAPTER XIV
"IT MIGHT BE YOU"

Marion caught her breath quickly. The marble pallor of her face showed up more strongly against her dark hair. Geoffrey caught the look and his eyes grew sympathetic.

"What's the matter, little girl?" he asked. "It isn't like you to faint."

"Neither am I going to faint, Geoff. But I had forgotten all about that box. I cannot go into details, for there are some things that we don't talk about to anybody. But that box is connected with rather an unhappy time in my youth."

"Hundreds of years ago," Geoffrey said flippantly.

"Oh, but it is no laughing matter, I assure you. When my mother was a child she was surrounded by all the craft and superstition of her race and religion. That was long before she got converted and married my father. I don't know how it was managed, but my mother never quite broke with her people, and once or twice, when she went to stay in Tibet, I accompanied her.

"My mother used to get restless at times, and then nothing would do but a visit to Tibet. And yet, at other times, nobody could possibly have told her from a European with foreign blood in her veins. For months and months she would be as English as you and I. Then the old fit would come over her.

"There was not a cleverer or more brilliant woman in India than my mother. When she died she gave me these things, and I was not to part with them. And, much as I should like to disobey, I cannot break that promise."

It seemed to Geoffrey that Marion spoke more regretfully than feelingly. He had never heard her say so much regarding her mother before. Affectionate and tender as Marion was, there was not the least trace of these characteristics in her tone now.

"Did you really love your mother?" Geoffrey asked suddenly.

"I always obeyed her," Marion stammered. "And I'd rather not discuss the subject, Geoff. Oh, they were bad people, my mother's ancestors. They possessed occult knowledge far beyond anything known or dreamt of by the wisest Western savants. They could remove people mysteriously, they could strike at a long distance, they could wield unseen terrors. Such is the terror that hangs over Ravenspur, for instance."

Marion smiled sadly. Her manner changed suddenly and she was her old self again.

"Enough of horrors," she said. "I came here to help you. Come along."

The boxes were carried below until only the brass-bound one remained. Geoffrey stooped to lift it. The wood was light and thin, the brass-work was the merest tracing.

A sudden guilty feeling came over Geoffrey as he raised it shoulder-high. He felt half inclined to defy his uncle Ralph and take the consequences. It seemed a mean advantage, a paltry gratifying of what, after all, might be mere curiosity.

But the vivid recollection of those strained, sightless eyes rose before him. Ralph Ravenspur was not the man to possess the petty vice of irrepressible curiosity. Had it not been a woman he had to deal with, and Marion at that, Geoffrey would not have hesitated for a moment. Down below in the hall he heard the hollow rasp of Ralph's voice.

Geoffrey made up his mind grimly. He seemed to stumble forward, and the box fell from his shoulder, crashing down on the stone floor. The force of the shock simply shivered it in pieces, a great nest of grass and feathers dropped out, and from the inside a large mass of strange objects appeared.

"I am very sorry," Geoffrey stammered after the box had fallen.

"Never mind," she said, "accidents will happen."

But Geoffrey was rapt in the contemplation of what he saw before him – some score or more of ivory discs, each of which contained some painting; many of them appeared to be portraits.

Geoffrey picked up one of them and examined it curiously. He was regarding an ivory circle with a dark face upon it, the face of a beautiful fury.

"Why, this is you," Geoffrey cried. "If you could only give way to a furious passion, it is you to the life."

"I had forgotten that," Marion gasped. "Of course, it is not me. See how old and stained the ivory is; hundreds of years old, it must be. Don't ask any more questions, but go and throw that thing in the sea. Never speak of the subject again."

Geoffrey promised. He strode out of the house and along the terrace. As he was descending the steps, a hand touched his arm. Ralph stood there.

"Give it me," he said, "at once."

"Give you what, uncle?"

"That ivory thing you have in your pocket. I felt certain it was there. Give it to me. Assume you have cast it over the cliffs. Marion will be satisfied."

"But I promised Marion that – "

"Oh, I know. And if you knew everything, you would not hesitate for a moment to comply with my request."

"Uncle, I cannot do this thing."

A hard expression came over Ralph's face.

"Listen," he said in his rasping voice. "The lives and happiness of us all are at stake. The very existence of the woman you love is in your hands."

"I have schemed for this," he said. "I expected it. And now you are going to balk me. It is not as if I did not know what you possess."

"That is because you must have overheard my conversation with Marion."

"I admit it," Ralph said coolly. "I listened, of course. But you found it and I heard what I expected. It is for you to say whether the truth comes out or not."

"The truth, the truth," Geoffrey cried passionately. "It must out."

"Then give me that miniature. I'll ask you on my knees if you like."

There was an imploring ring in the speaker's voice. Geoffrey hesitated.

"If no harm is to come to Marion," he said, "I might break my word."

Ralph gripped him by the arm convulsively.

"I swear it," he whispered. "On my honor be it. Have I not told you before that not for all Ravenspur would I have a hair of that girl's head injured! If ever a man in this world meant anything, I mean that. The miniature, come!"

And Geoffrey, with a sigh, handed the ivory disc to Ralph.