The day's work over, Abel Death sat awhile so deep in thought and so still and quiet that he might have been taken for one of the inanimate objects in this strangely furnished apartment. He had removed the candles from the desk to the table, where they flickered in the draught of a broken window, into which some rags had been thrust to keep out the wind. Within the radius of the flickering light the shadows on the walls and ceiling grew more weird and grotesque, each gust of air creating insubstantial forms and shapes as monstrous as the fancies of a madman's brain. Catchpole Square was a blind thoroughfare--being, as has been elsewhere described, like a bottle with a very narrow neck to it--and was therefore undisturbed by the tumult of the city's streets; and the prevailing silence, in which there was something deathly, was broken only by the sobbing and moaning of the rising wind which, having got into the Square, was making despairing efforts to get out. These sounds were in unison with the spectral life within the house, which seemed to find interpretation in the mystic voices of the air. It might have been so in very truth, for what know we of the forces of the invisible world through which we move and play our parts in the march from the cradle to the grave? Unfathomable mystery encompasses and mocks us, and no man can foretell at what moment he may be struck down and all his castles overturned, and all his plans for good or evil destroyed. Abel Death started to his feet. A stealthy step was on the stairs. The man coming up paused three or four times either to get his breath or for some other purpose; and presently he entered the room. Mr. Samuel Boyd was a tall man, and bore a close resemblance to his son in certain expressions of countenance and in certain little mannerisms of gesture which in the younger man were indications of an open-hearted nature, and in the elder of a nature dominated by craft and cunning. "You're back in time, sir," said Abel Death, in a cringing tone. Mr. Boyd made no immediate reply, being employed in looking distrustfully around to convince himself that nothing had been removed or disturbed. Even when he was assured of this the look of distrust did not die out of his eyes. "Are the letters all written?" he inquired, seating himself at the table. "They are, sir." "Have you posted up the books?" "Yes, sir. Everything is done." "Has any one called?" "No one, sir," promptly replied Abel Death. "Any knocks at the street door?" "No, sir." "You lie! There was a letter in the box." Abel Death's lips shaped themselves into the word, "Beast!" "What did you say?" demanded Mr. Boyd, upon whom no movement on the part of his servant, however slight, was lost. "I was going to say that the postman was no business of mine." "You are getting too clever, Abel Death--too clever, too clever! The men I employ must do their work without spying, without blabbing, without lying."