But Holmes' letter had, as it were, let in a waft of the dark cloud of the Past upon the fair and smiling peacefulness of the Present, and he fell to thinking on what strange experiences had been his--of the consistent and unswerving irony of life as he had known it. Every conventionality violated--every rule of morality, each set aside, had brought him nothing but good--had brought nothing but good to him and his. Had he grovelled on in humdrum poverty-stricken respectability, what would have befallen him--and them? For him the stereotyped "temporary insanity" verdict of a coroner's jury--for them, well, Heaven only knew. Whereas now? At this stage an impulse moved him, and opening a locked cabinet he took forth something, and as he examined it the associations of the thing, and the fast darkening room, brought back the vision of glooming rock walls and a perfectly defenceless man weighed down with horror and dread. "May I come in, father? But you are in the dark." It was Fay's voice. He half started, so rapt was he in his meditations. "That's soon remedied," he said, striking a light. "Yes, come in, little one. You were asking about this thing once. Look at it--queer sort of weapon, isn't it?" "It is, indeed," she answered. "Is it a Zulu war club? Why, the head is made of brass, or is it gold? And look, there is some strange writing on it." "And the handle is a bone. Yes, the head is gold, and I put the thing together when I had no other weapon--ay--and used it, too, in the ghastliest kind of fight I ever was in. Come, now, we will put it away again." "Not yet, father. Show me some more queer things," she pleaded, nestling to his side. Then he got out other trophies and curios, and Fay spent a good hour of unalloyed delight turning them wonderingly over, and drinking in the incident, more or less stirring, which related to each. But there was one thing he did not show her; one thing upon which no eye save his own might ever again rest; one thing he treasured up in the greatest security under lock and key, which was enshrined within his mind as a hallowed "charm," and that was the metal box and its contents--the "charm" which twice had stood between him and death--death violent and horrible--The Sign of the Spider. End of Project Gutenberg's The Sign of the Spider, by Bertram Mitford