That set me thinking instead of sentimentalizing. Who had torn off that precious corner? At first I had thought that Jenny must have done so in some sudden changing whim. But now I said it couldn't have been Jenny. Then who?... With a start I remembered having heard a movement in the room as I had stood outside the door foolishly talking down my thumping heart, too shy to face her. Suppose I had but repeated the manœuvre which my enemy had played on me? Suppose he too, hearing my hand on the knob, had climbed out through the window, and seeing the message there had snatched at it, in too great a hurry to release it carefully, and so had stolen just the fragment that I needed? It was possible. I flushed hotly at the possibility, for the explanation commended itself to me. And then the full meaning of the thing flooded in upon me. It wasn't my enemy. I must have been stupid ever to have supposed it could have been. It was the Captain's enemy. He was hunting for him. And now he would have the clue he wanted. All fear was forgotten now. I was up the ivy again; and leaping to the door I flung it wide. The landing was empty. With my knife in my hand I rushed into room after room, then down the stairs, hunting everywhere. And assuredly I should have stabbed anyone that had come in my path without staying to see who he might be. But the whole place was deserted. Only the hollow echoing of my feet rang from chamber to chamber, sounding strangely dismal in the gathering twilight. So at last I gave up the search. Standing still there in the great empty hall the abandonment of the place was like a watchful presence as of some listening thing, so that I turned about expecting to see eyes upon me in the shadowy corners. At last I grew really frightened at I know not what, and ran into the open. When I turned to look back the huge house was standing up black against the sunset as I had seen it that evening when hand in hand my father and I had first passed beneath its portals. And still it seemed to be rapt in some dark and evil meditation, gazing in upon itself as though concealing an ugly mystery which it dared not divulge. And I, knowing something of the haunting horror within its walls, and believing that even now an enemy was lurking there, felt an overshadowing dread at my heart as though an immense black bird had covered me with its wings. Then I heard a low sighing that swelled into a moan; and it seemed that the mighty creature were shaken with a sorrow it couldn't ease, crying to be rid of a sickness that was poisoning it to the soul. I clapped my hands to my ears and fled into the darkening night.