Bobby hurried down the road in the direction of the Cedars. Always he tried desperately to recall what had
occurred during those black hours last night and this morning before he had awakened in the empty house
near his grandfather's home. All that remained were his sensation of travel in a swift vehicle, his impression of
standing in the forest near the Cedars, his glimpse of the masked figure which he had called his conscience,
the echo in his brain of a dream-like voice saying: "Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always
do that. It's the only safe way."
These facts, then, alone were clear to him: He had wandered, unconscious, in the neighbourhood. His
grandfather had been strangely murdered. The detective who had met him in the village practically accused
him of the murder. And he couldn't remember.
He turned back to his last clear recollections. When he had experienced his first symptoms of slipping
consciousness he had been in the cafe in New York with Carlos Paredes, Maria, the dancer, and a strange man
whom Maria had brought to the table. Through them he might, to an extent, trace his movements, unless they
had put him in a cab, thinking he would catch the train, of which he had talked, for the Cedars.
Already the forest crowded the narrow, curving road. The Blackburn place was in the midst of an arid thicket
of stunted pines, oaks, and cedars. Old Blackburn had never done anything to improve the estate or its
surroundings. Steadily during his lifetime it had grown more gloomy, less habitable.
With the silent forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose
stone struck by a foot might have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. He saw
no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly it was the detective, Howells, who followed
him, hoping, perhaps, that he would make some mad effort at escape.
"That," he muttered, "is probably the reason he didn't arrest me at the station."
Bobby, however, had no thought of escape. He was impatient to reach the Cedars where he might learn all that
Howells hadn't told him about his grandfather's death.
A high wooden fence straggled through the forest. The driveway swung from the road through a broad
gateway. The gate stood open. Bobby remembered that it had been old Blackburn's habit to keep it closed. He
entered and hurried among the trees to the edge of the lawn in the centre of which the house stood.
Feeling as guilty as the detective thought him, he paused there and examined the house for some sign of life.
At first it seemed as dead as the forest stripped by autumn--almost as gloomy and arid as the wilderness which
straggled close about it. He had no eye for the symmetry of its wings which formed the court in the centre of
which an abandoned fountain stood. He studied the windows, picturing Katherine alone, surrounded by the
complications of this unexpected tragedy.
His feeling of an inimical watchfulness persisted. A clicking sound swung him back to the house. The front
door had been opened, and in the black frame of the doorway, as he looked, Katherine and Graham appeared,
and he knew the resolution of his last doubt was at hand.
Katherine had thrown a cloak over her graceful figure. Her sunny hair strayed in the wind, but her face, while
it had lost nothing of its beauty, projected even at this distance a sense of weariness, of anxiety, of utter fear.