It seemed to Jim Barrison that a series of pictures were being painted upon that cruel, that unfeeling, darkness. He had never, perhaps, been so close to himself before. The possibilities of human pain had certainly never been so apparent to the eyes of his mind. For suddenly, and with terrible clearness, he recalled his conversation with Grace Templeton, and seemed again to hear her say: “Suppose the traveler who showed him the real gourd of water should refuse to share it, after all? What do you think would be likely to happen then?” And once more he could hear himself reply: “I should think the thirsty man would be quite likely to shoot him!” And then—then—what was it she had said, with that enigmatical smile of hers? “Yes, that’s just what might happen!” _Yes, that’s just what might happen!_ She had said that. How much had she meant by it, and how much had she meant it? He did not know. But, though he was not willing to apply it too closely as a key to his present position, he could not bring it to mind without a strange chill. For, if there were women of that kind, he was sure that she—lovely and idealistic as she was—was one of them. He stood still, perfectly still, straining his ears, since it would have been utterly vain to have strained his eyes. For a time he even heard nothing. Yet he was poignantly conscious of another presence there—whose? He was afraid to permit himself much in the way of conjecture; that sharp and taunting memory was still too fresh with him. He would rather a thousand times over that he had been tricked and trapped by some desperate criminal determined to torture him to death than that _she_ should have thus deliberately led him here, should have thus cruelly traded upon her certain knowledge of his interest in her! The thing would not bear thinking of; it could not be! He scarcely breathed as he stood there, motionless, waiting for that other’s first movement. He was so tensely alert that it seemed strange to him that the other could even breathe without his hearing it. He wished for a revolver, and cursed himself for the precipitancy which had carried him off without it. And then he heard—what he had dreaded most of all to hear—the faint, almost imperceptible rustle of a woman’s dress! It was the veriest ghost of a rustle, as though the very lightest and thinnest of fabrics had been stirred as delicately as possible. But—it _was_ a woman, then! “Who is it?” he demanded, and his voice to his own ears seemed to resound like an experimental shout in one of the world’s famous echoing caverns. And the answer came in a whisper—a woman’s whisper: “Hush!” Then there was a long, blank, awful silence, and then the rustle once again. And again that sibilant breath voiced: “Can you tell where I am standing?” “Who are you?” Barrison repeated, though dropping his own voice somewhat. “Please don’t speak so loud!” He could barely hear the words. “I am Grace Templeton—surely you know?”