“Why do you say such horrible things?” he said. “I got rid of Wenner because she was not the wife for you----” “You didn’t want me to marry! You are waiting for my shoes, a dead man’s shoes!” almost screamed the elder son. “The last thing in the world you want to see is a new Countess of Chelford. You know it, you know it!” Dick Alford was silent. God knew his brother spoke the truth! It would be a woeful day for him when Harry Chelford brought a wife to this great house to share the dreadful secret which hung like a cloud over Fossaway Manor. IV Dick Alford was in the little study where he usually worked, a businesslike room filled with filing cabinets and deed boxes. The French windows giving to the lawn were open, for though it was September the night was warm, and he was working in his shirt-sleeves, a pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes protected from the overhead light by a big green shade that he wore affixed by a band to his head. If there was a resemblance between Lord Chelford and his mother, not even the keenest observer could trace in Dick Alford the slightest likeness to his half-brother. He was a creature of the open, a six-foot athlete, broad of shoulder and slim of flank, and his tanned face spoke of a life spent on the windy downs. His blue eyes surveyed the footman with a quizzical smile, as he pushed his battered old typewriter aside, relit his pipe, and stretched himself. “Black Abbot? Good Lord! Have you seen him, Thomas?” “No, sir, I have not seen him. But Mr. Cartwright, the grocer down in Chelford village…” He gave a graphic narrative of Mr. Cartwright’s horror, amazement, and confusion. “They telephoned up from the Red Lion to ask if his lordship had heard anything about it.” Even Thomas, who believed in nothing except Thomas, shivered. “It is the first time he has been seen for years according to all accounts, though he has been heard howling and moaning. Nobody knows who set fire to the vicarage when the parson was away at the seaside----” “That will do, Thomas. As to Cartwright, he was drunk,” said Dick cheerily, “or else he saw a shadow.” He glanced out at the lawn, bathed in the blue-white rays of a full moon. “You can see things in the moonlight that never were on land or sea. I understood that his lordship said that the Black Abbot was not to be discussed?” “Yes, sir.” “Then shut up!” said Dick. Pipe in mouth, he strolled across the hall into the dimly lit library. The three electroliers that hung from the roof were dark. Only the two green-shaded reading lamps that flanked each side of the desk were alight, and these intensified the gloom. Dick closed the door behind him and lounged over toward the desk, pulling a chair behind him. Chelford frowned at the sight of his brother. “Really, Dick,” he said irritably, “I wish to heaven you wouldn’t loaf about the place in shirt and breeches. It looks fearfully bad.”