It was growing late, and Kennedy was still steeped in his books, when the door of the apartment, which we happened to have left unlocked, was suddenly thrown open and Seward Blair burst in on us, wildly excited.

“Veda is gone!” he cried, before either of us could ask him what was the matter.

“Gone?” repeated Kennedy.  “How—­where?”

“I don’t know,” Blair blurted out breathlessly.  “We had been out together this afternoon, and I returned with her.  Then I went out to the club after dinner for a while, and when I got back I missed her—­not quarter of an hour ago.  I burst into her room—­and there I found this note.  Read it.  I don’t know what to do.  No one seems to know what has become of her.  I’ve called up all over and then thought perhaps you might help me, might know some friend of hers that I don’t know, with whom she might have gone out.”

Blair was plainly eager for us to help him.  Kennedy took the paper from him.  On it, in a trembling hand, were scrawled some words, evidently addressed to Blair himself: 

“You would forgive me and pity me if you knew what I have been through.

“When I refused to yield my will to the will of the Lodge I suppose I aroused the enmity of the Lodge.

“To-night as I lay in bed, alone, I felt that my hour had come, that mental forces that were almost irresistible were being directed against me.

“I realized that I must fight not only for my sanity but for my life.

“For hours I have fought that fight.

“But during those hours, some one, I won’t say who, seemed to have developed such psychic faculties of penetration that they were able to make their bodies pass through the walls of my room.

“At last I am conquered.  I pray that you—­”

The writing broke off abruptly, as if she had left it in wild flight.

“What does that mean?” asked Kennedy, “the ’will of the Lodge’?”

Blair looked at us keenly.  I fancied that there was even something accusatory in the look.  “Perhaps it was some mental reservation on her part,” he suggested.  “You do not know yourself of any reason why she should fear anything, do you?” he asked pointedly.

Kennedy did not betray even by the motion of an eyelash that we knew more than we should ostensibly.

There was a tap at the door.  I sprang to open it, thinking perhaps, after all, it was Veda herself.

Instead, a man, a stranger, stood there.

“Is this Professor Kennedy?” he asked, touching his hat.

Craig nodded.

“I am from the psychopathic ward of the City Hospital—­an orderly, sir,” the man introduced.

“Yes,” encouraged Craig, “what can I do for you?”

“A Mrs. Blair has just been brought in, sir, and we can’t find her husband.  She’s calling for you now.”

Kennedy stared from the orderly to Seward Blair, startled, speechless.