She went out as if she had not heard him, and the door closed behind her.  With growing perplexity, Philip directed his attention to the food.  This manner of serving his supper partly convinced him that he would not see Josephine again that night.  He was hungry, and began to do justice to the contents of the dishes.  In one dish he found a piece of fruit cake and half a dozen pickles, and he knew that at least Josephine had helped to prepare his supper.  Half an hour later the Indian woman returned as silently as before and carried away the dishes.  He followed her to the door and stood for a few moments looking down the hall.  He looked at his watch.  It was after ten o’clock.  Where was Jean? he wondered.  Why had Josephine not sent some word to him—­at least an explanation telling him why she could not see him as she had promised?  Why had Croisset spoken in that strange way just before they entered the door of Adare House?  Nothing had happened, and he was becoming more and more convinced that nothing would happen—­ that night.

He turned suddenly from the door, facing the window in his room.  The next instant he stood tense and staring.  A face was glued against the pane:  dark, sinister, with eyes that shone with the menacing glare of a beast.  In a flash it was gone.  But in that brief space Philip had seen enough to hold him like one turned to stone, still staring where the face had been, his heart beating like a hammer.  As the face disappeared he had seen a hand pass swiftly through the light, and in the hand was a pistol.  It was not this fact, nor the suddenness of the apparition, that drew the gasping breath from his lips.  It was the face, filled with a hatred that was almost madness—­the face of Jean Jacques Croisset!

Scarcely was it gone when Philip sprang to the table, snatched up his automatic, and ran out into the hall.  The end of the hall he believed opened outdoors, and he ran swiftly in that direction, his moccasined feet making no sound.  He found a door locked with an iron bar.  It took him but a moment to throw this up, open the door, and leap out into the night.  The wind had died away, and it was snowing.  In the silence he stood and listened, his eyes trying to find some moving shadow in the gloom.  His fighting blood was up.  His one impulse now was to come face to face with Jean Croisset and demand an explanation.  He knew that if he had stood another moment with his back to the window Jean would have killed him.  Murder was in the half-breed’s eyes.  His pistol was ready.  Only Philip’s quick turning from the door had saved him.  It was evident that Jean had fled from the window as quickly as Philip had run out into the hall.  Or, if he had not fled, he was hiding in the gloom of the building.  At the thought that Jean might be crouching in the shadows Philip turned suddenly and moved swiftly and silently along the log wall of Adare House.  He half expected a shot out of the darkness, and with his thumb he pressed down the safety lever of his automatic.  He had almost reached his own window when a sound just beyond the pale filter of light that came out of it drew him more cautiously into the pitch darkness of the deep shadow next the wall.  In another moment he was sure.  Some other person was moving through the gloom beyond the streak of light.