I had progressed perhaps twenty steps when a door, against which my hand pressed, yielded at the touch and swung slowly open. I strove to stop it, for the first opening showed a dim light within. But the panel gave no hold for my fingers, and my efforts to close the door only swung it open the faster. I drew back a little into the shadow, for I hesitated to dash past the sight of any who might occupy the room. “Come in!” called a harsh voice. I hesitated. Behind, the road led to the eating-room with its known dangers. A dash along the hall for the front door meant the raising of an alarm, and probably a bullet as a discourager of burglary. Should I escape this, I could be certain of a warm reception from the enemies on watch outside. Prudence lay in facing the one rather than risking the many. I accepted the invitation and walked into the room. “I was expecting you,” said the harsh voice composedly. “Good evening.” “Good evening,” I returned gravely, swallowing my amazement as best I could. By the table before me sat Mother Borton, contemplating me as calmly as though this meeting were the most commonplace thing in the world. A candle furnished a dim, flickering light that gave to her hard wicked countenance a diabolic leer that struck a chill to my blood. “Excuse me,” I said, “I have lost my way, I fear.” “Not at all,” said Mother Borton. “You are in the right place.” “I was afraid I had intruded,” I said apologetically. “I expected you,” she repeated. “Shut the door.” I glanced about the room. There was no sign of another person to be seen, and no other door. I obeyed her. “You might as well sit down,” she said with some petulance. “There's nothing up here to hurt you.” There was so much meaning in her tone of the things that would hurt me on the floor below that I hastened to show my confidence in her, and drew up a chair to the table. “At your service,” I said, leaning before her with as much an appearance of jaunty self-possession as I could muster. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she asked grimly. What should I answer? Could I tell her the truth? “Who are you?” she repeated impatiently, gazing on me. “You are not Wilton. Tell me. Who are you?” The face, hard as it was, seamed with the record of a rough and evil life, as it appeared, had yet a kindly look as it was turned on me. “My name is Dudley,--Giles Dudley.” “Where is Wilton?” “Dead.” “Dead? Did you kill him?” The half-kindly look disappeared from her eyes, and the hard lines settled into an expression of malevolent repulsiveness. “He was my best friend,” I said sadly; and then I described the leading events of the tragedy I had witnessed. The old woman listened closely, and with hardly the movement of a muscle, to the tale I told. “And you think he left his job to you?” she said with a sneer.