Retaining his brother's hand in his while Karl said good night to Rose, Adam went down stairs with him, and beyond the door after Ann Hopley had unbarred it. It was only since the advent of the new fears that these extra precautions of barring up at sunset had been taken. "Don't come out," urged Karl. "Just a step or two." Karl submitted: he felt secure enough against active danger to-night. But it was in these trifles that Adam's natural incaution betrayed itself. "Karl, did you tell all you knew?" he began as they plunged into the maze. "Was there more behind that you would not speak before the wife?" "I told you all, Adam. It is bad enough." "It might be worse. Suppose they were looking after me, for instance, instead of this fellow Salter! I shall baffle them; I don't fear." "Adam, you shall _not_ come farther. If the man got in one night, he may get in another. Goodbye." "Goodbye, dear old anxious fellow!" "Go in, and get the door barred." "All right. A last good night to you!" Karl walked on, through the intricacies of the maze. Adam stood listening for a moment, and, then turned to retrace his steps. As he did so, the sharp dart of pain he was growing accustomed to went through him, turning him sick and faint. He seized hold of a tree for support, and leaned against it. "What on earth can be the matter with me?" ran his thoughts after it had subsided, and he was getting out his handkerchief, to wipe from his brow the cold drops of agony that had gathered there. "As Ann Hopley says, I ought to see a doctor: but it is not to be thought of; and less than ever now, with this new bother hanging over the house. Hark! Oh, it's only the wind rustling the leaves again." He stayed listening to it. Listening in a dreamy kind of way, his thoughts still on his malady. "I wonder what it is? If the pain were in a different direction I might think it was the heart. But it is not _that_. When my father was first taken ill of his fatal illness, he spoke of some such queer attacks of agony. I am over young for his complaint, though. Does disease ever grow out of anxiety, I wonder? If so----"