“It sounded as if some one were dying,” she whispered.  “Look, isn’t that a light?—­over there among the gravestones!” A light flickered for an instant in the wretched little graveyard and then disappeared as mysteriously as it came.  “It’s gone!  How ghostly!”

“Extraordinary!  I don’t understand.  By Jove, it’s beginning to rain again.  I’m sure to have tonsilitis.  I feel it when I cough.”  He coughed again, louder than before.

Suddenly the steady beam of a dark lantern struck their faces squarely; a moment later the cadaverous Mr. Hooker was climbing over the graveyard fence.

“Am I late?” he asked, as he came forward.

“I say, turn that beastly light the other way,” complained Windomshire, half blinded.  “I thought no one but robbers carried dark lanterns.”

“The darker the deed, the darker the lantern,” said Mr. Hooker, genially.  “Good-evening, madam.  Are we the only ones here?” He was very matter-of-fact and business-like; Anne loathed him on the instant.

“We’re all here but the minister and the other witness.  I’ll cough again—­although it hurts me to do it.”

He coughed thrice, but instead of a response in kind, three sharp whistles came from the trees at the left.

“What’s that?” he gasped.  “Has he forgotten the signal?”

“Maybe he is trying to cough,” said Hooker, “and can’t do any better than wheeze.  It’s this rotten weather.”

“No, it was a whistle.  Good Heavens, Anne—­it may be detectives.”

“Detectives!” exclaimed Mr. Hooker, hoarsely.  “Then this is no place for me.  Excuse me, I’ll just step around the corner.”  As he scurried off, he might have been heard to mutter to himself:  “They’ve been hounding me ever since that job in the Cosgrove cemetery.  Damn ’em, I wonder if they think I’m up here to rob the grave of one of these jays.”  From which it may be suspected that Mr. Hooker had been employed in the nefarious at one time or another.

“Detectives, Harry?” gasped Anne.  “Why should there be detectives?  We’re not criminals.”

“You can’t tell what Mrs. Thursdale may have done when she discovered--Hello!  There’s a light down the road!  ’Gad, I’ll hide this lantern until we’re sure.”  He promptly stuck the lantern inside his big raincoat and they were in darkness again.  A hundred yards to the left a light bobbed about, reminding them of childhood’s will-o’-the-wisp.  Without a word Windomshire drew her around the church, stumbling over a discarded pew seat that stood against the wall.  Groaning with pain, he urged her to crouch down with him behind the seat.  All the while he held the umbrella manfully over her devoted head.

Voices were heard, drawing nearer and nearer—­one deep and cheery, the other high and querulous.

“It—­it—­oh, Harry, it’s that Mr. Derby!” she whispered.  “I’d know his voice in a thousand.”

“The devil!” he whispered intensely, gripping her hand.