This knowledge, while it set my heart throbbing in realization of new danger, yet served also to stiffen my nerves.  What had we blindly drifted into?  What was behind this lawlessness which could make murder commonplace?  What mystery lurked about this haunted, hideous house where death skulked in the dark?  My thought was not so much concerned with myself, and my own danger, as with that of the young woman whom I was bound to protect.  She had come innocently, driven by desperation, to play a part she already loathed in this tragedy, and now I alone stood between her and something too awful to contemplate.  Now, before she awoke I must discover the truth, and thus be prepared to get her safely away.

I closed the door on the silence, and stole quietly downstairs.  There was no movement, no sound in the great house.  The front room, hideous in its grimy disorder, was vacant, and I opened the front door noiselessly, and stepped forth into the spectral gray light of the dawn.  The first glimpse about was depressing enough.  I had no conception of what I was confronting, or of what was to be revealed by my explorations, but the dismalness of the picture presented to that first glance gave me a shock impossible to explain.  The house itself, big and glaring as it was, was nevertheless little better than a ruin, the porch beams rotten, the front blinds sagging frightfully, the paint blistered by the sun.  Several of the windows were broken, and the steps sagged and trembled under my weight.  The front yard, a full half acre in extent, was a tangled mass of bushes and weeds, a high, untrimmed hedge shutting off all view of the road.  The narrow brick path winding through this mass of vegetation was scarcely discernible, apparently seldom, if ever, used.  I was unable to determine the position of the gate so luxuriant was the weed growth, and thick the shrubbery.  From the foot of the steps a narrow passage trampled into the dirt circled the corner of the house, disappearing within a few feet.  This was the only sign visible of human occupancy.

Convinced that this must lead to the rear, and possibly the negro cabins where Coombs slept, I followed its tortuous windings, although half afraid to desert my guardianship of the house even for this purpose.  Still there was little to be feared so long as Mrs. Bernard remained securely locked in her room.  I was freer for exploration now than I would be later, and must know at once the conditions with which we had to contend.  Beyond doubt the woman was still asleep, and, perhaps, by the time she aroused and appeared below stairs I could find a reasonable explanation of all this mystery—­something to smile over, rather than fear.  While this was but a vague hope, it still yielded me a measure of courage as I picked my way cautiously along the south side of the house, avoiding the windows as much as possible, until I emerged into a somewhat clearer space of ground at the rear.  The kitchen was an ell, constructed of rough boards, but with shingle roof.  The door stood ajar, and I glanced in, only to find the room empty, the pots and pans used the night before still unwashed.