Paredes's easy contempt was like a tonic for Katherine. Her fear seemed to drop from her. She turned purposefully to Bobby, ignoring the Panamanian. "I shall watch with Hartley," she said. He was ashamed that jealousy should creep into such a moment, but her resolve recalled his amorous discontent. The prospect of Graham and her, watching alone, drawn to each other by their fright and uncertainty, by their surroundings, by the hour, became unbearable. It placed him, to an extent, on Paredes's side. It urged him, when Paredes had gone on downstairs, to spring almost eagerly to his defence. "As Hartley says," Katherine began, "he makes you think of a snake. He must see we dislike and resent him." "You and Hartley, perhaps," Bobby said. "Carlos says he is here to help me. I've no reason to disbelieve him." A little colour came into Katherine's face. She half stretched out her hand as if in an appeal. But the colour faded and her hand dropped. "We are wasting time," she said. "You had better go." "I am sorry we disagree about Carlos," he commenced. She turned deliberately away from him. "You must hurry," she said. "Hurry!" He saw her enter the corridor to join Graham. The obscurity of the narrow place seemed to hold for him a new menace. He walked downstairs slowly. While he telephoned, instructing a servant to tell the doctor to be dressed and ready in twenty minutes, he saw Paredes go to the closet and get his hat and coat. "I shall keep you company," the Panamanian announced. Bobby was glad enough to have him. He didn't want to be alone. He was aware by this time that no amount of thought would persuade useful memories to emerge from the black pit. They walked to the stable, half gone to ruin like the rest of the estate. Bobby started Graham's car. The servants' quarters, he saw, were dark. Then Jenkins and the two women hadn't been aroused, were still ignorant of the new crime. As they drove smoothly past the gloomy house they glimpsed through the court the dimly lit windows of the old room that persistently guarded its grim secret. Bobby pictured the living as well as the dead there, and his mind revolted, and he shivered. He opened the throttle wider. The car sprang forward. The divergent glare from the headlights forced back the reluctant thicket. Paredes drawled unexpectedly: "There is nothing as lonely anywhere in the world." He stooped behind the windshield and lighted a cigarette. "At least. Bobby," he said between puffs, "the Cedars has taken from you the fear of Howells." And after a time, staring at the glow of his cigarette, he went on softly: "Have you noticed anything significant about the discovery of each mystery at the Cedars?" "Many things," Bobby muttered. "Think," Paredes urged him. Bobby answered angrily: "You've suggested that to me once to-day, Carlos. You mean that each time I have been asleep or unconscious." "I mean something quite different," Paredes said.