My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence of the great library. I stirred the fire on the hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident that had already marked my coming. It was possible, to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed through the glass with too much force to have come so far; and, moreover, I could hardly imagine even a rifle-ball’s finding an unimpeded right of way through so dense a strip of wood. I found it difficult to get rid of the idea that some one had taken a pot-shot at me. The woman’s mocking voice from the lake added to my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired first confidences with fire and lamp. There was something haunting in that last cry across the water; it kept repeating itself over and over in my ears. It was a voice of quality, of breeding and charm. “Good night, merry gentlemen!” In Indiana, I reflected, rustics, young or old, men or women, were probably not greatly given to salutations of just this temper. Bates now appeared. “Beg pardon, sir; but your room’s ready whenever you wish to retire.” I looked about in search of a clock. “There are no timepieces in the house, Mr. Glenarm. Your grandfather was quite opposed to them. He had a theory, sir, that they were conducive, as he said, to idleness. He considered that a man should work by his conscience, sir, and not by the clock,—the one being more exacting than the other.” I smiled as I drew out my watch,—as much at Bates’ solemn tones and grim lean visage as at his quotation from my grandsire. But the fellow puzzled and annoyed me. His unobtrusive black clothes, his smoothly-brushed hair, his shaven face, awakened an antagonism in me. “Bates, if you didn’t fire that shot through the window, who did—will you answer me that?” “Yes, sir; if I didn’t do it, it’s quite a large question who did. I’ll grant you that, sir.” I stared at him. He met my gaze directly without flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone or attitude. He continued: “I didn’t do it, sir. I was in the pantry when I heard the crash in the refectory window. The bullet came from out of doors, as I should judge, sir.” The facts and conclusions were undoubtedly with Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried another line of attack. “Of course, Bates, I was merely joking. What’s your own theory of the matter?”