“You’ve only told me half,”—and I kept my hand on the closed gate. The snow still fell steadily and the short afternoon was nearing its close. I did not like to lose her,—the life, the youth, the mirth for which she stood. The thought of Glenarm House amid the snow-hung wood and of the long winter evening that I must spend alone moved me to delay. Lights already gleamed in the school-buildings straight before us and the sight of them smote me with loneliness. “Olivia Gladys Armstrong,” she said, laughing, brushed past me through the gate and ran lightly over the snow toward St. Agatha’s. CHAPTER X AN AFFAIR WITH THE CARETAKER I read in the library until late, hearing the howl of the wind outside with satisfaction in the warmth and comfort of the great room. Bates brought in some sandwiches and a bottle of ale at midnight. “If there’s nothing more, sir—” “That is all, Bates.” And he went off sedately to his own quarters. I was restless and in no mood for bed and mourned the lack of variety in my grandfather’s library. I moved about from shelf to shelf, taking down one book after another, and while thus engaged came upon a series of large volumes extra-illustrated in water-colors of unusual beauty. They occupied a lower shelf, and I sprawled on the floor, like a boy with a new picture-book, in my absorption, piling the great volumes about me. They were on related subjects pertaining to the French chateaux. In the last volume I found a sheet of white note-paper no larger than my hand, a forgotten book-mark, I assumed, and half-crumpled it in my fingers before I noticed the lines of a pencil sketch on one side of it. I carried it to the table and spread it out. It was not the bit of idle penciling it had appeared to be at first sight. A scale had evidently been followed and the lines drawn with a ruler. With such trifles my grandfather had no doubt amused himself. There was a long corridor indicated, but of this I could make nothing. I studied it for several minutes, thinking it might have been a tentative sketch of some part of the house. In turning it about under the candelabrum I saw that in several places the glaze had been rubbed from the paper by an eraser, and this piqued my curiosity. I brought a magnifying glass to bear upon the sketch. The drawing had been made with a hard pencil and the eraser had removed the lead, but a well-defined imprint remained. I was able to make out the letters N. W. 3/4 to C.— a reference clearly enough to points of the compass and a distance. The word ravine was scrawled over a rough outline of a doorway or opening of some sort, and then the phrase: THE DOOR OF BEWILDERMENT