I lit a pipe and threw myself down in an armchair in the surgery, where I had been in the habit of spending the last few evenings, putting things to rights after my own fashion. If Pete's superstition was going to obsess him to this extent my summer was likely to be a lively one! No bird that ever flew was sufficient to justify the extraordinary state into which he had thrown himself. Whiskey might be at the root of it, despite Lennox's faith; I had kept him under my eye in the village, but I knew that no human vigilance is sharp enough to keep a darkle from drink if he has the tendency. The sideboard was usually unlocked, but tomorrow I determined to take the key into my own possession. Wanting something to read, and to lazy to go back into the sitting-room, I fell to examining the contents of the surgery bookshelves. There were the usual array of medical books, some new, some old; apparently Lennox had kept himself more or less up to date. At one end, on the upper shelf, were several volumes on mental diseases, "Lunacy and its Causes," Hoffman's "Congenital Insanity," and one or two recent pathological treatises that I knew only by title. There was a well-known medical work on criminology among them also, and from their number and disposition, and the several paper bookmarks that caught my eye here and there, I judged that this particular study must have had some attraction for Lennox. There was nothing, however, that interested me for the moment, or that promised cheerful reading. I had not come down here to dive into works on mental disorders or the bound reports of Lunacy Commissions as preliminary to passing a healthful holiday, and I fell back on a month-old magazine that was lying on the surgery table. When I had finished it I turned the lamp slightly down and went out on the porch, with the idea of trying to locate again the noise that had caused such catastrophe that evening. The woods about were very still; not a leaf moved. The silence had an intensity that was almost oppressive. Clouds had gathered, obscuring the moon, and it was quite dark. Presently, above the line of the farther tree-tops, a gleam of light shot up. It moved and swept, like a white arm outstretched against a black curtain. So near as I could judge, it came from the direction of Sliefer's dam, a point some two miles away, and at first glimpse I thought it might be a fire, but the whiteness of it put that out of the question. It had the appearance of a crude searchlight, but it was less definite in ray and moved less steadily. More than anything else, it reminded me of those "jackies" that children love to make with a bit of prism refracted on a wall. For several minutes I watched it, then, as suddenly, it was extinguished, twitching back into darkness, and I turned and went indoors. III A MYSTERIOUS CALL