WIND 
 ALONG THE WASTE 
 
_ ' ' I .(1 
 
 Jff'SB 
 
 My eyes had not played tricks on me yesterday 
 
WIND 
 ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 BY 
 
 GLADYS E. JOHNSON 
 
 am 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1921 
 
4fr 
 
 ^v* 
 
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 Copyright, 1921, by 
 The Centuby Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1921, by 
 
 The Consolidated Magazines Corporation 
 
 (The Blue Book Magazine) 
 
   • 
 
 
 * « < 1. 1 « 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I Ann's Reception at Dune House . . 3 
 
 II Joan's " Bluebeard Chamber' t ... 19 
 
 III Shadows of Fear .35 
 
 IV Watching .48 
 
 V "What the Sand Revealed .... 67 
 
 VI The Howl in the Night .... 80 
 
 VII Ann Makes a Decision 93 
 
 VIII The Paralytic Man 109 
 
 IX Ann Puts Her Trust in Flour . . 125 
 
 X Midnight Prowlers 138 
 
 XI Questions Without Answers . . . 153 
 
 XII The Footprint in the Flour . . . 171 
 
 XIII In the Night 188 
 
 XIV More Things in Heaven and Earth . 204 
 XV Tai Loy 220 
 
 XVI The Yellow Wolf ...... 242 
 
 XVII Hoang 259 
 
 XVIII The Curtain Ascends 267 
 
 436220 
 
WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ANN'S RECEPTION AT DUNE HOUSE 
 
 <X TOJJ can see for yourself that there 's nothing 
 j[ to get scared of. Lonely? 'Course it's 
 lonely ; so 's every country house, and I suppose 
 some would find sand-dunes more so than the 
 straight country, but if you have a brain in your 
 head — and I think you have ; that 's why I en- 
 gaged you — you are n't going to work up a fit of 
 hysterics and think every shadow 's a ghost and 
 it 's going to bite you ! " 
 
 Eliza Haldayne finished this tirade with a 
 rather belligerent stare, and I quickly murmured 
 something about " hoping not." 
 
 Her quick black eyes galloped about the room. 
 " I think everything you '11 need 's here. The 
 children's room is next to yours. You '11 see 'em 
 in the morning. Hoang brought your baggage 
 up, I see," with a quick glance at my suit-cases 
 placed at the foot of the bed. "Don't open your 
 
4 \yiMD ALONG- THE WASTE 
 
 windows; night air's bad. Breakfast's at 
 eight." 
 
 Firing this information jerkily, as one who is 
 unaccustomed to or impatient of wasting re- 
 marks, she moved toward the door, the light from 
 the hanging kerosene lamp wickedly painting her 
 bobbing caricature on the walls as she did so. 
 
 At the doorway she paused a moment and 
 looked back at my motionless figure bathed in 
 the lamplight. It might have been a trick of 
 the shadows, or perhaps only my fancy, but for 
 a brief instant she seemed about to speak, inde- 
 cision battling with some other emotion which I 
 could not analyze. Whatever the impulse may 
 have been, it was quickly over. Her middle-aged 
 features slipped back into their usual stern mask 
 and with a curt " Good night " she had disap- 
 peared into the hall. 
 
 For a moment I stood hesitating in the center 
 of the big, high-ceiled room, chilled more than 
 reassured by the advice I had just received. The 
 lamp cast a cone of yellow light, an enormous 
 splash of color, in the very center of the room. 
 Beyond its radius the shadows gathered omi- 
 nously, seeming only to await some signal to rush 
 silently upon me. Before the fancy my usual 
 self-possession fled, leaving me feeling very frail 
 and defenseless. 
 
 After all, Keason began hysterically, what did 
 
ANN'S KECEPTION 5 
 
 I know about this woman who had engaged me 
 as governess? Even the country was strange 
 to me. The automobile which had brought me 
 from the city had traveled all day to reach this 
 lonely house on the California coast. My sense 
 of direction had given up in despair long ago. I 
 did not know how far we were from San Fran- 
 cisco ; I did not know if there was another dwell- 
 ing within miles. 
 
 The thought .brought its own panic. I flew 
 silently to the door to lock it. I could see no 
 key and impatiently I grasped the knob to see if 
 it might not be on the outside. 
 
 My chilled fingers became aware of an indis- 
 putable fact. The knob was held firmly by an- 
 other hand, out there in the hall. 
 
 For the moment that unexpected resistance 
 left me too surprised to cry out. I felt my fin- 
 gers relax; the great room with its splashes of 
 lamplight swam wildly. The faded red-velvet 
 curtains before the windows were ominously 
 bulky. 
 
 The vertigo passed. A hot anger came in its 
 wake and I twisted the knob viciously. This 
 time it gave easily, but the door remained closed. 
 It was locked from without. In stubborn terror 
 I debated the wisdom of shaking the knob 
 frenziedly and screaming until some one should 
 come to release me. Even as the thought pre- 
 
6 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 sented itself the futility of such a proceeding 
 became apparent. 
 
 I walked slowly back to the friendly cone of 
 light, my eyes furtively taking in every detail of 
 the apartment. The chairs, ugly modifications 
 of Windsors, stupidly carved and stuffily uphol- 
 stered, cast grotesque shadows on the white plas- 
 ter walls. The high ceiling was lost in the dusk 
 above; an old-fashioned black walnut wardrobe, 
 towering upward in the gloom, offered frightful 
 suggestions. I deliberately walked the length of 
 the room and boldly flung it open, feeling the 
 roots of my hair tingle as I did so. Its half- 
 doors banged back against the wall, but it was 
 reassuringly empty. 
 
 Leaving it gaping, I turned next to those sug- 
 gestively bulky window hangings. My new em- 
 ployer's warning about opening the windows now 
 leaped to my mind, endowed with new coloring. 
 Advancing as though I intended to return to the 
 neglected suit-cases at the end of the bed, I sud- 
 denly wheeled and jerked aside the heavy hang- 
 ings. Nothing but closed wooden shutters met 
 my wide eyes. These I unbolted, then raised one 
 of the long, narrow sashes. 
 
 A rush of fog came to my face and the lamp- 
 light fell on a heavy wire mesh completely cov- 
 ering the open area, as effectively as iron bars 
 could have done. No one could get into the room 
 
ANN'S RECEPTION 7 
 
 through the windows, that was certain. It 
 should have been reassuring, but — neither could 
 any one get out. 
 
 I closed and bolted the shutters again, strug- 
 gling hard for self-possession. The windows 
 would have been of no aid, anyway; I had 
 climbed a long flight of stairs to this second- 
 story room. The ground probably lay thirty or 
 more feet below. 
 
 I returned to the lamp's circle and gingerly 
 seated myself on the edge of the old-fashioned 
 wooden bed, rendered creaky and rheumatic by 
 long years of ocean dampness. 
 
 The vague doubts I had unconsciously enter- 
 tained all day were now alive three-fold and 
 screaming for recognition. My mind flew back 
 over my brief acquaintance with Eliza Haldayne, 
 searching for some inkling why she should lock 
 up the governess she had just engaged for her 
 sister's children. A more matter-of-fact, unro- 
 mantic figure than Miss Haldayne it would have 
 been hard to imagine. 
 
 I had literally " fallen into " this position. 
 Cramming four years' college work into three, 
 and this coupled with the double task of earning 
 a livelihood at the same time, had brought a 
 physical collapse hand-in-hand with my degree of 
 A.B. My carefully hoarded little capital melted 
 with laughable rapidity. Once on my feet again, 
 
8 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 I looked for secretarial work, thanking the lucky 
 star which had included a brief business course 
 of stenography in my curriculum. It was not 
 easy to find. One employment bureau after the 
 other was visited. Discouraged by a day's un- 
 successful tramping of wet streets, I had hesi- 
 tated before a small agency on a side street. 
 
 " One more," my will-power coaxed my tired 
 body. " Just this one ; then you can go home 
 to a nice mustard footbath." It was a forlorn 
 hope. The place dealt exclusively in domestic 
 servants, and these of the less desirable sort. 
 
 I left there quickly, and, because of the tired 
 tears in my eyes and a run-over heel, I was care- 
 less in stepping to the wet pavement. I was 
 vastly astonished to find myself on all fours, 
 directly in the path of a tall, big-framed woman 
 who was heading for the entrance. 
 
 Even as she helped me to my feet her quick 
 black eyes ran over me, missing no detail of my 
 shabby, would-be-efficient attire, now muddy and 
 wet. She began without preliminaries : 
 
 " You just came out of that place. Are you 
 looking for a position?" 
 
 Too tired to resent her tone, I answered: 
 i Yes. But they have n't anything for me. I 'm 
 a stenographer." 
 
 " Well, I don't suppose it would kill you to do 
 something else. You 're about twenty-three, I 
 
ANN'S KECEPTION 9 
 
 guess. You look like you had sense. What 's 
 your name? " 
 
 At another time this cross-examination would 
 have roused either my indignation or my sense 
 of humor. Now I told her, meekly enough. 
 
 " Well, look here, Ann Belmont," she persisted: 
 " I 'm looking for a nurse-girl — a governess, if 
 you like the term better, though I don't care if 
 you can't teach, so long as you have gumption. 
 It 's to take care of two children. Just because 
 the place is in the country the average fool 
 woman thinks it 's lonesome. I '11 pay you 
 twenty a week besides your board ; that 's better 
 than you 're liable to get with your stenography. 
 You 're young and you look as if you had sense. 
 Besides, you 're not pretty — I can't stand a 
 pretty fool. Will you come? " 
 
 It was rather sudden, and the snob which is 
 in all of us rose within me at what it was 
 pleased to regard as a " menial " position. Eliza 
 Haldayne met every objection and overrode it. 
 Wet feet and the munificent salary backed her 
 up. I was engaged. 
 
 Early the next morning, my new employer 
 drove around to my side-street hotel, the only 
 occupant of a clumsy great machine whose height 
 and outside gear-shift and horn proclaimed it 
 the vintage of some ten years before. Like its 
 owner, it was sadly in need of "smartening." 
 
10 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Its coat of shabby black paint had rubbed off 
 in great rusty patches, which, together with the 
 worn leather cushions and a shabby lap-robe, sug- 
 gested the thought that at some time in its career 
 it had been sadly afflicted with the mange. 
 
 Into this ancient relic I piled my two suit- 
 cases; then Eliza Haldayne threaded her way 
 through the work-tide of traffic which filled the 
 streets. She chose the San Bruno road out of 
 the city, a thoroughfare leading through the 
 Potrero, San Francisco's poorest quarter. A 
 cold, raw fog had rolled in from the ocean, blur- 
 ring the outlines of dismal little cottages stand- 
 ing in the midst of their goat pastures. The 
 great tanneries and soap factories loomed indefi- 
 nite bulks in the grayness, only the human nose 
 defining their presence. The shabby neighbor- 
 hood was one with the shabby car rolling through 
 it and I was swept along on a great wave of 
 depression. In my summer-weight suit I shiv- 
 ered. For the first time I experienced a sense of 
 uneasiness — foreboding almost — gnawing in 
 the back of my mind. 
 
 Yet, even now, sitting here huddled at the foot 
 of the great shadowy bed I had to admit that 
 there was nothing in Eliza Haldayne's appear- 
 ance to excite alarm. She was only a large- 
 framed, rather commonplace woman in an ugly 
 great-coat, a shabby man's-cap pulled down over 
 
ANN'S RECEPTION 11 
 
 her one beauty, a thick wad of coarse, slightly- 
 wavy gray hair. A typical New England spin- 
 ster she seemed, with a veneer of masculinity 
 added through contact with this Western land. 
 She had been rather silent on the journey down 
 the peninsula, but I was not loquacious at the 
 best of times and we got on well together. When 
 we made a stop beside the dusty highway at noon, 
 and gnawed upon some thick and rather stale 
 cheese sandwiches my employer rooted out from 
 the car's side pocket, I gleaned scant information 
 of my future. I was to have two charges, Miss 
 Haldayne volunteered between vigorous chews, 
 a girl and a boy, children of a dead younger sis- 
 ter. Who else formed the family she had not 
 vouchsafed and I did not ask. My reason was 
 now pouncing upon incongruities in the situation 
 and, rather panic-stricken, forcing them upon me. 
 The appearance of my employer, the disgraceful 
 old car, this very luncheon of stale bread and 
 scraps of cheese When roadside cafes beckoned 
 on all hands — it was incompatible with the 
 really princely salary I was to receive for doubt- 
 ful ability. Was the lonely location of the place 
 the only reason that she had for baiting it with 
 such tempting wages? 
 
 All through the long, warm day the car had 
 limped south, down the highway. In the late 
 afternoon the presence of fog once more betrayed 
 
12 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the ocean to be not far off. We had turned from 
 the main road long ago and were running be- 
 tween broad, flat fields that soon alternated with 
 sandy patches. 
 
 Now once more memory prodded me to fearful 
 alertness. There had been one incident, which 
 at the time I had put down to mere eccentricity 
 but which now, viewed in the light of that locked 
 door, took on new meaning. 
 
 Where the asphalt had ceased and the drifted 
 sand piled in little hummocks on the road, the 
 woman had stopped the car and, climbing cap- 
 ably over the back of the front seat as a man 
 might have done, she began to rummage in the 
 tonneau, finally emerging with rusty side cur- 
 tains. 
 
 Involuntarily I had spoken my amazement. 
 " Why, Miss Haldayne, the wind has died down ! 
 I was thinking how nice and mild it was." 
 
 Even through the thickening dusk I had seen 
 Eliza Haldayne's lips tighten as though she were 
 displeased. " I know w T hat I 'm about," she 
 retorted tartly. " I guess I know this coun- 
 try better than you do. Here, catch a-hold that 
 corner." 
 
 The car had been completely covered when 
 she finished, even to the point of enclosing the 
 driver's seat until its occupants could not pos- 
 sibly be recognized by one looking in from the 
 
ANN'S RECEPTION 13 
 
 road. In the fog and gathering dusk this seemed 
 to me sheerest insanity, but there was a deter- 
 mination in the woman's manner which kept my 
 opinions unspoken. She was working with des- 
 perate haste as though spurred on by the dark- 
 ness. Subconsciously my nerves responded. I 
 found myself glancing over my shoulder, though 
 the flat, dusky country for miles appeared de- 
 serted. 
 
 When Eliza Haldayne climbed back to the 
 driver's seat and released the brake it had been 
 to urge the old rattle-trap to the limit of its 
 speed. At the time I had thought her only anx- 
 ious to arrive home before the road was totally 
 dark and I blamed my own too-vivid imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 The car was running then between sand-dunes 
 and fields mixed, — links, my Scotch ancestors 
 would have called them. A thick white fog was 
 bearing down from above; a straggling growth 
 of lichens kept the sand from drifting and in 
 some instances had thrown suckers across the 
 road, showing that it was but little traveled. On 
 the curves a distant white ocean came to view 
 through drifting fog, but it did not hold my eyes. 
 Despite my common sense, I numbly watched the 
 road unreel, shrinking involuntarily when the 
 wheels scrunched over the lichens. Though it 
 grew quite dark, Miss Haldayne did not stop to 
 
14 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 light the lamps. We rattled along in the grow- 
 ing blackness, the woman beside me driving as 
 though she possessed the eyes of a cat. 
 
 Not until we were almost upon it did I see the 
 house. Against the background of lofty sand- 
 dunes its black bulk lost proportion, but one 
 sensed its height. No hospitable light shone 
 from the windows : they might have been boarded 
 up, for their blackness. In the darkness I stum- 
 bled over shallow wooden steps leading to a 
 front veranda. There was no way of seeing the 
 building's surroundings; the fog lay like wet, 
 thick cotton on everything, blotting out the stars. 
 I was forced to fight down a silly fit of panic, 
 panic of which I was a trifle ashamed when the 
 front door suddenly opened and a flare of lamp- 
 light fell on our faces. 
 
 Now, my nerves still twitching because of that 
 inexplainably locked door, I remembered that 
 Eliza Haldayne had shoved me ahead of her into 
 the hall, with almost rude haste, and that her 
 grim features had relaxed only when the door 
 was safely bolted behind us. 
 
 Here the first peculiarity of the old house had 
 been forced upon me. An amazing number of 
 lamps, kerosene lamps of all sizes and descrip- 
 tions, blazed wherever one turned. Far down 
 the long hall we faced they winked back at me; 
 twinkling from what seemed to be myriads of 
 
ANN'S EECEPTION 15 
 
 little wooden shelves jutting out of the walls to 
 hold them. Not a dark corner existed anywhere ; 
 even the stairs leading to the second floor were 
 lit — a prodigal waste of oil, and incongruous 
 when those stale cheese sandwiches were recalled. 
 The rooms branching on each side of the hall 
 weltered in lamplight, but heavy wooden shut- 
 ters and thick hangings over the windows had 
 kept the friendly gleam from penetrating to us 
 outside. 
 
 A silent Chinese servant grasped my suit-cases 
 and disappeared with them, up a crooked flight of 
 stairs; yet when, scarcely a minute later, we en- 
 tered the chilly, high-ceiled dining-room it was 
 to find him placidly waiting on the table. 
 Hoang, I was to discover, possessed the rather 
 startling faculty of appearing to be in two places 
 at once. 
 
 There had been nothing at this time to arouse 
 the wild speculations I now entertained. Eliza 
 Haldayne continued silent, but her silence had 
 lost its tense quality now, and was merely that 
 of preoccupation. The others, she informed me 
 briefly while she chewed some cold meat, had 
 gone to bed; they kept early hours at Dune 
 House. Just who " the others " might be I was 
 left to speculate in silence. Her preoccupation 
 lasted until she had preceded me up the crooked 
 stairs and shown me this shadowy bedroom on 
 
16 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the second floor. Her tone, though brusk, was 
 kind. There was nothing to warn me that I was 
 to be locked as a prisoner in the room as soon as 
 she had left. Turn and grope as my mind would, 
 it could find no explanation of the mystery other 
 than eccentricity. 
 
 I grasped at this straw of comfort eagerly. 
 Eccentricity stops at locking doors. Neverthe- 
 less I was taking no chances. All the horror- 
 stories I had secretly read in childhood, all the 
 disquieting tales of violence now flocked gleefully 
 into my quaking brain. There was that comfort- 
 ing little legend of the traveler in the lonely inn 
 who wakes in time to see the canopy of the bed 
 descending to crush his unsuspecting form. 
 
 I rose rather hastily and looked at the bed. 
 The old-fashioned roll top sported no canopy, 
 but I was not waiting for it to grow one. With 
 grim determination I tugged a great feather mat- 
 tress to a far corner. If anything was to enter 
 the room in the night and grope its way to the 
 bed, I didn't intend to be there. My fingers 
 shook as I loosened the laces of my shoes. That 
 completed my toilet for the night, for, after an 
 inward debate, I decided that if I was to be mur- 
 dered in my sleep I preferred at least to have the 
 moral support of my outer clothes. 
 
 One other ray of comfort was vouchsafed, — a 
 tall and heavy brass candlestick whose maker 
 
ANN'S RECEPTION 17 
 
 must have foreseen its utility as a weapon. 
 With this in my hand and a shaking little prayer 
 in my heart I turned the lamp low and blew it 
 out. 
 
 As the flame flickered down to a dim violet 
 glow I groped my way to my bed on the floor. 
 The damp smell of the fog filled the room — I 
 had opened the tall window — but a weak, 
 watery moon was struggling to break through. 
 Even as I huddled down in the cold billows of 
 feathers its thin light triumphed, the shadow of 
 the wire mesh grew on the floor. 
 
 With wide eyes I watched the light wax 
 stronger. It crept up, striking the bow-leg of a 
 chair, slanting across the foot of the wooden 
 bedstead. Up the panels of the door at the far- 
 ther end of the chilly room it moved, until its 
 pale light quivered on the brass knob. 
 
 Then the roots of my hair began to tingle, my 
 heart was smothered. Under my eyes that knob 
 turned, turned gently, then came silently to rest 
 again as though a tentative hand made sure that 
 it was still locked. There was no sound either 
 inside or outside the room. For what seemed an 
 eternity of time I sat rigidly upright among the 
 feather billows, my eyes glued to the now motion- 
 less knob. It was the candlestick's sharp base 
 cutting into my palm which finally forced my 
 attention. 
 
18 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 With the relaxation of the muscles the mental 
 strain eased a little. Still too tense even to 
 speculate, I cautiously shifted to a more restful 
 position and leaning back on the pillows I fixed 
 my watchful eyes on the door. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 JOAN'S "BLUEBEARD CHAMBER" 
 
 IN the cold light of morning I flattened my face 
 to the wire mesh covering the windows and 
 tried to see the surroundings among which I had 
 chosen to live. The house stood in dreary isola- 
 tion in the midst of interminable sand-dunes. 
 An unkempt garden sloped beneath the window, 
 the steep, dried flower beds bearing out the deso- 
 lation I had sensed last night. Only a few scat- 
 tered sea-pinks and some lupine shrubs — long 
 purple spikes of flowers swaying on gray-green 
 twisted branches, whose seeds had evidently been 
 blown in by the wind — put pale color in the 
 scene. A ragged evergreen hedge, its seaward 
 branches twisted and bare, edged the place. It 
 was Swinburne's " Forsaken Garden." 
 
 The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels 
 One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. 
 
 Only the wind here hovers and revels 
 In a round where life seems barren as death. 
 
 The fog was high. By flattening my face until 
 the wire mesh painted its dirty counterpart on 
 
 19 
 
20 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 my nose I caught glimpses of a small open bay 
 edged by a dreary, seaweed-dotted beach. 
 
 For a minute or two I stood flattened there, 
 the dismalness of the scene soaking into my 
 spirit. An impudent sea-gull wheeling close 
 screamed derisively at me and turned me to 
 hunting for my comb and brush. 
 
 The terror of the night before had worn off. 
 Investigation this morning showed me that the 
 door was unlocked; the key was on the outside. 
 Despite my terror sleep had stolen upon me. 
 Sometime during the night, while I lay in help- 
 less unconsciousness, some one had stealthily un- 
 locked the door. The thought was unpleasant. 
 My indignation mounted with my hair and when 
 I stood ready to go downstairs I was entirely in 
 possession of every faculty save my temper. 
 
 I removed all signs of my improvised bed on 
 the floor, feeling a little foolish as I did so. The 
 menace of the shadows had disappeared. The 
 room was nothing, now, more than the upper bed- 
 room of a rambling great house ; the curtains held 
 no ominous bulkiness, the heavy furniture was 
 more frankly ugly, less fearfully grotesque. 
 
 A glance at the door as I stepped into the hall 
 showed an empty lock. The key was gone. 
 
 The upper hall appeared to stretch the length 
 of the house and to parallel the lower one I had 
 traversed last night. At both ends it plunged 
 
JOAN'S "BLUEBEAKD CHAMBER" 21 
 
 down a flight of steep and crooked stairs. I 
 counted seven doors shut blindly on it, but if 
 anything living lay behind them no sound be- 
 trayed it. On this floor I lingered only long 
 enough to glance out at the window in the bend 
 of the stairs. It gave upon a dreary vista of 
 dun-colored sand-dunes, billowing away into the 
 distance; and, like the ones in my bedroom, was 
 entirely covered by a heavy wire mesh. 
 
 A slight sound behind me whirled me about, all 
 nerves. The Chinese servant I had seen last 
 night was watching me, unpleasantly close. 
 There was something in his unsmiling scrutiny, 
 something hostile that I sensed in his bearing 
 that caused an instant antagonism to leap full 
 grown within me. I don't like people kitty-cat- 
 ting up behind me and said so frankly, finding 
 relief in speech. He waited stolidly until I had 
 finished, then informed me that " Missy Hal- 
 dayne say come breakfast," and glided ahead of 
 me to show the way. 
 
 After the chill of that red-hung bedroom this 
 new scene was commonplacely reassuring. In 
 the breakfast-room Eliza Haldayne sat en- 
 trenched behind the coffee urn, clad in a freshly 
 starched and severe brown gingham. On her 
 right was a drably blond, middle-aged woman 
 who had reached the fat and sighing stage of 
 existence. On her left two solemn-faced, thin 
 
22 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 children sat silently attacking their breakfast 
 oatmeal. A place for me had been laid at the 
 end of the table. 
 
 Eliza Haldayne received me with a curt but 
 not unfriendly nod. 
 
 " G' morning. This is my sister, Drusilla Hal- 
 dayne, Ann Belmont, and these are the children, 
 Joan and Harry Statler." 
 
 It was one of Miss Haldayne's characteristics 
 that she invariably dispensed with titles. She 
 generally used one's two names in conjunction 
 and threw the handles overboard. 
 
 Miss Drusilla, as I afterward came to call 
 her, looked up with a nicker of interest in her 
 large, languishing blue eyes and breathed a gusty 
 welcome. A glance from her sister shut off her 
 ramblings and allowed me to slip into my chair. 
 The children were shyly curious, their pale little 
 faces stretching out on thin necks, as sickly 
 plants stretch toward the sun. The surprise I 
 felt at their appearance amounted almost to 
 shock. I had pictured sturdy young savages, 
 brown and hardy from tumbling about the sand- 
 dunes. These youngsters had the appearance of 
 people too much indoors. 
 
 My polite attempts at conversation met with 
 no encouragement. Meals were rather silent af- 
 fairs at Dune House, I was to discover. After 
 that first large-eyed survey, the children ate 
 
. JOAN'S "BLUEBEAKD CHAMBER" 23 
 
 steadily, almost fearfully, their eyes on their 
 plates, embarrassed as children will become un- 
 der too rigid control. Miss Drusilla's conversa- 
 tion consisted of complaints aimed at Hoang, 
 carried on in a monotonous whining undertone 
 until the significance of my name caught her 
 flickering interest. 
 
 "Belmont? I knew some people of the same 
 name once — quite a prominent family they were. 
 They owned a magnificent home in San Fran- 
 cisco. Land, the dances and balls I went to 
 there! But that was in other days." The bit- 
 terness of that last phrase stirred even my unini- 
 tiated brain and a faint pity was born in my 
 heart. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I can't claim kin with the rich 
 Belmonts," I answered, trying to speak lightly. 
 " I 've heard of them ; they were prominent in 
 early California society." 
 
 " That 's the family ! " Miss Drusilla put in 
 eagerly. Her vacant blue eyes lit up with a 
 flare of interest. " There was a brother of the 
 girls, a handsome young gallant. The girls used 
 to tease me about him ; quite wild about me they 
 said he was." She giggled insinuatingly and 
 paused to take a bite of bread and butter. 
 
 There was something so grotesque about that 
 mountain of pale, flabby flesh recalling love- 
 affairs that I know I stared rudely. It did not 
 
24 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 annoy Miss Drusilla. On the contrary, my too 
 frank expression was taken for admiring interest. 
 She nodded coyly over the bread and butter. 
 
 " That 's so. They were dreadfully afraid that 
 he would do something desperate when I refused 
 him; quite the catch of the season he was, too. 
 Yellow, I wore the night he proposed, I always 
 could wear yellow and you know so many girls 
 look sallow in it. It was made with a bertha of 
 rose-point. I remember a lovely Englishman — 
 he was a captain in the Black Watch — told me 
 that I looked like a slender daffodil — " 
 
 Her ramblings abruptly ran down and jerked 
 into silence. Eliza Haldayne had turned her 
 prominent black eyes on her sister. 
 
 " Hoang, more coffee." Her voice boomed out 
 and effectually blocked conversation. 
 
 When we rose from the table I intercepted my 
 employer as she was following the others from 
 the room. 
 
 "Miss Haldayne, a curious thing happened 
 last night." I strove to keep my voice expres- 
 sionless. " Just after you left my room I tried 
 the door. It was locked on the outside." 
 
 The black eyes before me never wavered. Nor 
 did my own. For a brief moment we silently re- 
 garded each other. Then the woman spoke 
 quietly. "You must be mistaken, Ann. Who 
 would wish to lock you in your room? " 
 
JOAN'S "BLUEBEARD CHAMBER" 25 
 
 I answered as quietly : " I can't imagine what 
 their object would be, Miss Haldayne. It 
 mustn't happen again." 
 
 " That door sticks. That 's what you mistook 
 for being locked in. I '11 have Hoang fix it to- 
 day." 
 
 " Some one tried the knob last night, after I 
 was in bed. I saw it turn, in the moonlight." 
 
 We still held each other's gaze. u I hope you 
 are n't going to develop nerves, Ann." 
 
 " I 'm not afraid." I was inwardly applaud- 
 ing my noncommittal tone. Except for the burn- 
 ing of my cheeks my manner was as composed 
 as that of the woman before me. " However, the 
 door must be fixed, so it does n't — stick." 
 
 Another long stare, then the black eyes were 
 jerked away. " Of course," she said in a matter- 
 of-fact tone. " Now, come with me and I '11 show 
 you the children's room." 
 
 The children's room was reassuringly obvious. 
 Once a sort of upstairs double parlor, its folding- 
 doors were flung wide to make it one apartment. 
 Two little beds graced an alcoved place at one 
 end, showing that it served the purpose of a com- 
 plete nursery. 
 
 As Miss Haldayne left us the two pale chil- 
 dren came forward politely to receive me. 
 Again I was overcome by the incongruity of their 
 frail little bodies and their sturdy surroundings. 
 
26 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 a Would n't you like me to take you for a run 
 on the beach? " I asked as I put an arm about 
 each, grieved to find how completely my reach 
 could encircle their slenderness. The sun was 
 breaking through the fog now and I longed to 
 put some life and color into those pale babies. 
 
 They stood uneasily under the caress. Only 
 too evidently it was a strange experience for 
 them. Joan, the elder, finally spoke: 
 
 " We could n't. Aunt Eliza won't let us. We 
 play in here and sometimes, when it 's nice and 
 bright, she lets us play on the ocean veranda for 
 an hour or two." 
 
 " You never go out ! " My amazement fairly 
 exploded from me. 
 
 Joan, a solemn little mite of eight, contented 
 herself with shaking her head, her serious dark 
 eyes fixed on my face as though trying to read my 
 expression. 
 
 My indignation flared up. The poor young- 
 sters were virtually prisoners in that great dis- 
 mal house. That explained the pale faces, the 
 macaroni-like bones. At that moment Eliza 
 Haldayne became to my indignant fancy a child- 
 devouring ogre. " Why, that 's absurd ! " I was 
 bursting out unwisely, when those two steady 
 stares recalled me. 
 
 " There 's lots of toys. Would you like me to 
 show them to you?" The little boy spoke in 
 
JOAN'S "BLUEBEARD CHAMBER" 27 
 
 a monotonously polite tone. " There's a new 
 steam-engine that runs around the room ; only it 
 won't run any more. Maybe you could make it 
 work if you tried." 
 
 He led the way to a great closet at the end of 
 the room and opened the door to show a conglom- 
 eration of playthings systematically stored with- 
 in. I was treated to another surprise. Never 
 outside of a toy shop had I seen such an expen- 
 sive array. A doll-house four feet high stood 
 complete, from the little red-brick chimney and 
 its " mahogany " dining-room set to the toy mop 
 standing behind the miniature kitchen range. 
 Expensive and intricate mechanical toys were 
 stored in Harry's end of the space. A great doll, 
 as large as Joan herself, sat in a rocker and 
 stared at us out of heavily fringed blue eyes. 
 
 Toys that would make the average child deliri- 
 ous with delight; toys which must have cost a 
 small fortune and which accorded ill with the 
 shabby automobile and the general air of cheese- 
 paring which overhung the rest of the house. It 
 was as though this means had been taken to make 
 up to the children for their lost liberty. I was 
 compelled to revise my opinion of Miss Hal- 
 dayne. Surely she was not indifferent to chil- 
 dren when she bought them playthings such as 
 these ! It must be misdirected zeal which caused 
 her to keep the children virtual prisoners. 
 
28 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Outside, in the hall, I found her and spoke in 
 a carefully casual tone. " I want to take the 
 children for a run on the beach, Miss Haldayne. 
 It 's a pity to waste a fine day." 
 
 The woman paused in her quick, businesslike 
 walk and faced me squarely, her lips pursed over 
 her large square teeth. " I don't want the chil- 
 dren running around the dunes. No telling what 
 might happen to them. Tramps." She jerked 
 out the phrases characteristically. 
 
 The obvious weakness of that emboldened me 
 to protest. 
 
 " Why, there are n't likely to be tramps on 
 this lonely shore ! Besides, I '11 be w T ith them all 
 the time. The children must have more sun, 
 Miss Haldayne. They '11 fall ill if they don't get 
 out more." 
 
 The unspoken accusation in my tone appeared 
 to make her wince inwardly. Unconsciously, as 
 I later found out, I had flicked the tenderest spot 
 of her conscience : the fulfilment of her duty. 
 
 Her prominent black eyes shifted to the mesh- 
 covered window. 
 
 "All right. Go ahead, then. But only for 
 an hour and that in the middle of the day. 
 Down on the beach 's all right. Don't go out of 
 my sight. Don't take 'em over the dunes, either. 
 Mind that ; I don't want them near the dunes on 
 
JOAN'S "BLUEBEARD CHAMBER" 29 
 
 the east of the house. If you can't heed that 
 they '11 not go at all." 
 
 The bruskness of her tone roused my indigna- 
 tion, but I answered with all the quiet dignity at 
 my disposal : " I 'm only thinking of the chil- 
 dren's good, Miss Haldayne. I have no desire to 
 go any place you forbid." 
 
 Her eyes jerked back to me with a glint of apol- 
 ogetic humor in their black depths. " A porcu- 
 pine can't grow ostrich plumes," she gave out 
 cryptically; which was as near an apology as 
 any human being had ever received from Eliza 
 Haldayne. 
 
 At the unusual prospect of a run on the beach 
 the children shed their gnome-like strangeness 
 and became normal youngsters. After one 
 abashed moment at the novelty of it, the little 
 girl flung herself at my neck and clung there 
 with an unchildish ferocity that touched and 
 startled me. 
 
 " I love you, I love you lots, Miss Belmont ! " 
 she whispered, almost fiercely, down my collar. 
 " I feel like girls in books I 've read. Oh, I 'm 
 so happy ! " 
 
 Shaken almost to the point of tears by this, 
 and gaining mental relief in thinking murderous 
 thoughts of the severe woman downstairs, I 
 bundled them into their coats. The unexpected 
 
30 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 liberty acted as a Moses's rod on their high 
 spirits. One each side of me they had begun to 
 chatter like little magpies, finding a hysterical 
 relief in turning their little brains inside out for 
 my benefit, heaping me with scraps of the books 
 they had read, of the queer mental games they 
 played together, of all the weird happenings of 
 a too-precocious imagination. I was all the 
 more amazed to hear silence fall like a blight on 
 each chattering voice and feel the reluctant lag 
 in their footsteps as I started bustling down the 
 hall with them. 
 
 "Why, what is it, Joan?" I asked the little 
 girl. The hall was empty, yet both children were 
 staring down its dreary length with wide, dread- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " Miss Belmont, let 's go down the other 
 stairs." It was Harry who piped up. 
 
 "Why?" I asked curiously. My gaze fol- 
 lowed theirs. My room and theirs were located 
 at about the center of the hall. At one end was 
 the crooked staircase down which I had de- 
 scended to breakfast that morning. That other 
 duplicated it exactly, even to the long, narrow 
 red-curtained window which stood in the bend 
 midway and gazed sullenly over lupine-dotted 
 sand-dunes. 
 
 There was nothing else, so far as I could see; 
 yet the children had come to a dead stop and 
 
JOAN'S " BLUEBEARD CHAMBER " 31 
 
 their eyes were fixed on the staircase in fasci- 
 nated horror. 
 
 " Why, Harry? Why should we use the other 
 stairs? " 
 
 This time it was Joan who replied, her eyes 
 still focussed in dread. " There 's a room at the 
 bottom we must n't go into. Harry and I call it 
 Bluebeard's Chamber." 
 
 "W T hy mustn't you go in?" I was secretly 
 proud of the humorous off-handedness of my tone, 
 which gave no suspicion of the fearful thrill 
 that overswept me at that awed little whisper. 
 
 Joan shook her head. "Aunt Eliza told us 
 that we never must. And she looked so — so 
 angry and she frowned so, that we were scared." 
 
 " Of course it 's right for you to obey your 
 aunt," I came back righteously. " She probably 
 had some good reason for not wanting you in 
 there, but I don't think you need be afraid." 
 
 They shook their heads in concert, not in the 
 least reassured. " Nobody 7 s allowed to go there, 
 — Aunt Drusilla neither. Hoang never goes 
 there. Only Aunt Eliza, one day. Harry dared 
 me and I tiptoed to the stairs and hid behind the 
 window-curtain. I said I wasn't afraid, but I 
 was. And I looked between a little slit in the 
 curtain down at the door of the Bluebeard Cham- 
 ber. It was sort of dark down there. Then I 
 heard some one open the door and I thought I 'd 
 
32 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 nearly die, but it was only Aunt Eliza coming 
 out. She looked awful cross and I ran upstairs 
 and down the hall to our room as fast as I could. 
 I felt like I was going to die and my heart beat 
 like anything." 
 
 It was a relief to the high-strung child to 
 pour out to an older person the crammings of her 
 fearful little brain. 
 
 u But when the door was open, could you see 
 in back of your aunt? Into the room? " 
 
 I knew that I should not have asked this of 
 those trusting youngsters, but my own curiosity 
 was growing alarmingly. 
 
 Joan shook her head; her voice was a scared 
 whisper. " I could n't see good, I was so scared. 
 Afterward I tried to remember, to tell it to 
 Harry. It was all dark. It looked like the shut- 
 ters were fastened over the windows, and all I 
 could see was something all shiny, like a terrible 
 face. It looked straight at me. Oh-h ! " She 
 shivered. 
 
 In spite of myself the words sent a chill along 
 my own backbone. "You must have imagined 
 it, dear. It is probable your aunt has the room 
 shut up only to save cleaning." I guessed with 
 false heartiness. But my tone did not convince 
 myself, let alone those frightened youngsters. 
 
 We descended the other stairs to the lower 
 floor. The broad lower veranda was deserted; 
 
JOAN'S "BLUEBEARD CHAMBER " 33 
 
 the sun had conquered the last of the fog army 
 and lay reassuringly warm and golden on the 
 weather-stained boards. The fierce winds which 
 rose every afternoon were sleeping as yet; the 
 dunes stretched in tawny drowsiness under the 
 arch of a lapis lazuli sky. Twisting and turning 
 until it was lost in the distant haze stretched the 
 road we had traveled last night, a dun-colored 
 ribbon between hummocks of sand. The ocean 
 was running high and green ; the ugly stretch of 
 beach which bordered the little bay at low tide 
 was covered. The scene was not without a cer- 
 tain lonely charm this morning. 
 
 Freed from the house's depressing atmosphere, 
 the children chirped like shivering little spar- 
 rows thawing in the sun. My own spirits 
 bounded upward. I had let my imagination run 
 away with my common sense, Reason scolded. 
 That episode of the locked door was doubtless 
 the peculiarity of an eccentric countrywoman. 
 Miss Drusilla certainly suggested no mystery. 
 The children had worked a fascinating but ridic- 
 ulous mystery about a locked room; I was here 
 to curtail that tendency in them, not to encour- 
 age it. 
 
 Strong with a mightly carelessness, I shot a 
 half -challenging glance over my shoulder at the 
 old building basking in the growing heat. 
 
 It stared insolently back with blank sun- 
 
34 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 flooded eyes. The front veranda was still de- 
 serted, but my gaze was drawn to the out jutting 
 bay-window of the parlor on the corner. Half 
 hidden though she was by the velvet hangings, I 
 recognized the great square form of Eliza Hal- 
 dayne, — not, as one might think, looking after 
 the skipping forms of the children, but with head 
 turned fearfully, unwaveringly upon the eastern 
 sand-dunes of which she had warned us. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SHADOWS OF FEAR 
 
 TRYING to write consecutively of the events 
 of my first few weeks at Dune House, I find 
 myself baffled. There were no events, to be 
 strictly truthful. The every-day tasks of teach- 
 ing and playing with the children ; of first listen- 
 ing to, then trying to avoid Miss Drusilla's fatu- 
 ous and tiresome ramblings, and reading the 
 books I had brought down with me, can hardly 
 come under that head. As to the mystery which 
 I felt underlying everything, that knowledge of 
 something wrong which I had sensed since the 
 first night of my arrival, it refused to come out 
 into the open with any one happening, but 
 skulked behind every word and every action with 
 maddening vagueness. 
 
 After that one passage of words between us, 
 Miss Haldayne raised no objection to my taking 
 the children for a run on the beach each day. 
 And though the sight of her, always half con- 
 cealed behind the hangings of the bay-win- 
 dow when I did so, gnawed irritatingly at my 
 
 35 
 
36 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 nerves, I did not appear to notice; nor did I 
 allow it to turn me from my purpose. 
 
 For a long time I could not classify the vague 
 emotion which appeared to underlie the actions 
 of the three adults. At the quiet meals, broken 
 only by flabby Miss Drusilla' s rambling mono- 
 logues or Miss Haldayne's curt orders to Hoang, 
 I tried to analyze it. 
 
 Relations between the two sisters, it was easy 
 to see, were strained; in fact, they had reached 
 the stage of actual dislike, garrulous and spiteful 
 on Miss Drusilla's part, contemptuous on Miss 
 Haldayne's. One felt it as an almost tangible 
 undercurrent. Though obviously afraid of her 
 sister, Miss Drusilla took the delight of a mis- 
 chievous child in irritating her with trifles, — 
 gnat stings which the older woman brushed im- 
 patiently away, pausing to take a determined 
 slap at them only when plagued beyond endur- 
 ance. 
 
 At first this rather amused me. Later, it got 
 on my nerves. My first pity for Miss Drusilla 
 had given way to a very whole-hearted exaspera- 
 tion, once she had trailed me about the house, 
 pouring her w T hining complaints in my ears. 
 She had cause enough for them, poor woman, 
 but it was impossible to see that jellyfish-like 
 mound of flesh giving itself the airs and graces 
 of a coquettish young beauty without becoming 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 37 
 
 annoyed. The only time I had ever caught Miss 
 Haldayne in anything save a preoccupied alert- 
 ness had been an afternoon when I tried unsuc- 
 cessfully to turn Miss Drusilla's conversation 
 from her droned recollections of social triumphs. 
 My answers had degenerated into perfunctory 
 monosyllables, a fact which mattered not in the 
 least to the flabby creature who had fastened 
 upon me, octopus fashion, and was determined 
 to drain me of the last vestige of interest. 
 
 Looking up in exasperation, I saw Eliza Hal- 
 dayne watching us from the door of the shadowy 
 dining-room. That swift upward glance of mine 
 surprised a sardonic gleam of humor in her black 
 eyes. 
 
 It was only for a second ; then she had turned 
 on her broad heel and left us, but that brief in- 
 stant had flung an invisible bond between us. 
 I had caught a glimpse of her rare human side 
 and ever after that she seemed more approach- 
 able, less severely capable. 
 
 Later I was to have further revealment of this 
 side of her character. That night, when the chil- 
 dren were in bed, she entered the room where I 
 sat reading and stood rather grimly regarding 
 me. She had something on her mind. It came 
 out abruptly. There was little beating about 
 the bush with Eliza Haldayne. 
 
 " Do you think my sister ? s pretty? " 
 
38 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 That term, in connection with the creature i 
 had disrespectfully named in secret the " white 
 rabbit," brought me up gasping. 
 
 " Lord, no ! " I brought it forth with unflat- 
 tering sincerity. 
 
 The other woman regarded me musingly. 
 "Hum-m-m. Not now, perhaps. Look in 
 there." 
 
 She pointed a spatulate finger at a faded blue- 
 plush covered album which occupied an honored 
 and isolated place on the lower shelf of a hide- 
 ously carved what-not. Obediently I opened the 
 fat volume. 
 
 There was the usual collection of homely and 
 self-conscious strangers encased in the gold fili- 
 gree, bewhiskered men with too much neck and 
 too little collar, women with frizzed hair, clothed 
 in basques and balloon sleeves; an old man with 
 fierce bright eyes peering from a jungle of side 
 whiskers whom I took to be the father of them 
 both; the likeness of a slender half -grown girl 
 so much like Joan that I knew it for her mother, 
 then two pictures, side by side on the page, which 
 left me gasping. How they managed to be so 
 different, yet at the same time so cruelly alike, I 
 could r\ot say. A beautiful fair-haired young 
 woman looked up at me from clear, childish eyes. 
 The fresh young face was perfect in contour and, 
 one judged, perfect in coloring. The neck rose 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 39 
 
 flower-like from the elaborate ruffle of an evening 
 dress. Opposite, in cruel contrast, was a photo- 
 graph of the other sister taken apparently at 
 the same time. The fierce black eyes burned as 
 zealously as they did now; the mouth was stub- 
 born and wide, the thin face surmounted an un- 
 compromising linen collar. But this my eyes 
 took in only briefly ; like a steel to the magnet 
 the flower-like beauty of the other face drew and 
 held them. 
 
 " That — that can't be Miss Drusilla!" and 
 my tone had an unflattering edge of amazement 
 upon it. 
 
 Though her expression had not changed, I 
 knew that my shocked disbelief had not dis- 
 pleased Miss Haldayne. 
 
 " She was twenty-five then. She was beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 " Yes, she was beautiful — then," I stammered, 
 staring at the picture in fascination. Before my 
 eyes the round girlish chin multiplied, the soft 
 cheeks became jowls, the firm sweet neck grew 
 gross and flabby. I closed the book with a queer 
 repulsion and found that Miss Haldayne had left 
 the room. 
 
 " One thing sure, Ann Belmont," I told myself 
 in triumph that night as I piled into the great 
 wooden bed, " you 've discovered Miss Hal- 
 dayne's weak spot. She was jealous of her 
 
40 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 beautiful sister in days gone by and the habit 's 
 become chronic. Grotesque as it sounds, she's 
 still jealous of that flabby mountain of flesh." 
 
 For a long time I remained awake, lost in the 
 enormousness of the bed, watching the weak 
 moon stamp the reflection of the meshed window 
 on the faded carpet as I tried to picture the life 
 of the sisters years before. Miss Haldayne's 
 words when she engaged me floated back now 
 with new meaning : " You 're not pretty — I 
 can't stand a pretty fool." 
 
 I could imagine childish slights piling up ; the 
 pettings and luxuries ever awarded the pretty 
 child while the iron entered the starved, lonely 
 soul of the other. 
 
 " But it was something deeper than that/* 
 I sagely protested. Childhood slights alone 
 never brought that look into Miss Haldayne's 
 eyes. What did two women ever quarrel over, 
 deeply, bitterly? What but a man? One had 
 attracted where the other had not. Apparently 
 neither had won. "It was a man!" I assured 
 myself solemnly, more than a little pleased at my 
 Sherlock Holmes qualifications. "Good Lord, 
 what a scene they must have raised between 
 them ! " And satisfied with my solution, I 
 turned over and went to sleep. 
 
 From then on I sensed the undercurrent of 
 antagonism more keenly. So intent was I in 
 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 41 
 
 reading into the actions of the sisters my own 
 suspicions that I lost sight of those other mys- 
 teries which had baffled me. Throughout one 
 morning of teaching Joan and Harry, the im- 
 pulse to search the old album for some loose 
 thread to the solution tortured me. I found my- 
 self watching the clock, waiting for school hours 
 to be over, that I might hurry to the little sitting- 
 room where it lay on the carved what-not. 
 
 With the daily run on the sand, since my 
 advent as playmate and confidante, the young- 
 sters had developed into more normal beings 
 and after their study time they called, with the 
 tyranny of the average child, for a promised 
 romp. My intention became more deeply rooted 
 the more it was postponed and I slipped away 
 at the first chance, flushed and breathless from a 
 pillow-fight, slid into the hall, and sped wildly 
 to the staircase before my tormentors should dis- 
 cover and follow. 
 
 I took the stairs two at a time, but silently. 
 The door — much to my surprise, for the room 
 was used as a small sitting-room by both sisters 
 — was closed. It had always stood ajar before 
 this, its sedate old furniture, fetched from 
 "around the Horn/' grouped primly around a 
 marble-topped center-table. I was about to 
 grasp the knob, knowing that neither Miss Hal- 
 dayne nor her sister was liable to be in it at 
 
42 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 this hour of the day; when a smothered shriek 
 from the shadowy hall behind me suspended my 
 hand in mid-air and set my scalp a-tingle. 
 
 " Not in there ! Never go in there ! " It was 
 Miss Drusilla's voice and it was edged with genu- 
 ine fright. 
 
 I wheeled, to find her regarding me, white- 
 faced and breathless, from the dark depths of a 
 small linen closet. 
 
 In my headlong rush to escape Joan and Harry 
 I had bolted down the wrong stairs and my hand 
 had been on the knob of the forbidden room. The 
 pile of sheets dropped to the floor in her agitation 
 showed what Miss Drusilla's occupation had 
 been. Now T she bent and automatically recov- 
 ered them. Even her wheezing held a frightened 
 note. As for me, my heart was beating high, but 
 I brazoned it out. 
 
 " It 's my mistake. I got mixed on the stair- 
 cases. I meant to go into the sitting-room." 
 
 Miss Drusilla now creaked over to me, the 
 sheets clasped in her arms, making her more 
 tremendous than ever. 
 
 "Ann, don't let Miss Haldayne know you 
 started to open that door. Of course it 's locked 
 anyway, but still — " 
 
 u Why? " I could n't resist putting in. 
 
 " My sister does n't like it. She won't let any 
 one go in there." 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 43 
 
 " Why? " I asked again. It was rude, but I 
 was so filled with curiosity as to be indifferent, 
 for the time being, to good manners. 
 
 The woman was making obvious efforts to 
 draw me from the fatal door lest her sister ap- 
 pear on the stairway above us. " I don't know 
 why/' and her voice was almost tearfully agi- 
 tated. " But don't go near there, Ann. Miss 
 Haldayne will be furious." 
 
 So evident was her distress that I let her lead 
 me away, catching the contagion of her fear as 
 we passed along the dark hall. 
 
 At the door of the sitting-room she turned, the 
 light from the window falling on her dough-like 
 face. She was more composed, though her 
 breathing was still a heavy wheeze. She spoke 
 with a ludicrous attempt at dignity, as though to 
 counterbalance the terror she had shown. 
 
 " There 's nothing, of course, to be excited over. 
 It 's just a room we never use and my sister has 
 shut it up. It 's only a whim of hers, but we 
 never cross it ; she 's rather set in her ways, you 
 know, Ann." 
 
 I did know and as she left me I turned and 
 walked slowly upstairs to the children again, all 
 thoughts of searching the old album driven from 
 my head. 
 
 The days which followed alternated for me 
 between exciting dread and a scornful ridicule 
 
44 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 of myself when I thought I was seeing mystery 
 where none existed. 
 
 u You 're a fool, my dear Ann/' I would tell 
 myself severely. " What have you to build your 
 suspicions upon save two impolite and unpleas- 
 ant elderly women, two pale youngsters kept too 
 much indoors from misdirected zeal, a door locked 
 upon you once — unpleasant, certainly, but not 
 fatal — and an old room shut from the rest of 
 the house? " 
 
 And for a brief spell it seemed that I had 
 called the turn. One day's program was mad- 
 deningly like the rest. The entire household 
 rose at seven-thirty and thirty minutes later ate 
 breakfast together in the breakfast-room on the 
 ocean side of the house. Hoang, though I had 
 never recovered from my first dislike of him, I 
 had to admit was an ideal servant. How he 
 managed to cook the food and at the same time 
 serve it so punctiliously I could never under- 
 stand. His blue-linened, silent figure was al- 
 ways in attendance whenever one put out one's 
 hand for an article. 
 
 From nine to ten I trotted the children on the 
 beach, putting them through a brisk race that 
 sent our circulation tingling. Joan was devel- 
 oping golden freckles on her round childish nose 
 and Harry was more like a normal boy, less like 
 a six-year-old ghost. The wind and the sun 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 45 
 
 was changing me, as well. Standing before my 
 mirror one day, noting the yellow glints the sun 
 had coaxed into my wind-ruffled hair, the loss 
 of the dark circles of anxiety about my eyes, the 
 natural oval of my face complied by wholesome 
 food and unbroken rest at night, I thought re- 
 sentfully that Miss Haldayne needn't have 
 laid quite so much emphasis on my lack of pretti- 
 ness the day she engaged me. 
 
 School hours took up the time to one-thirty. 
 A sort of story-telling game, lessons had degen- 
 erated into, warranted to raise the hands of the 
 orthodox in holy horror. But allowance should 
 be made ; ex-stenographers cannot be expected to 
 proceed along the line of attack adopted by the 
 regulation schoolmarm, and oddly enough the 
 children did seem to be learning something under 
 my instruction. 
 
 At two-thirty Miss Drusilla could be heard 
 wheezing heavily along the hall to her bedroom. 
 One was likely to find Miss Haldayne flying up 
 and down the lower hall armed with dust-cloth 
 or broom, preoccupied, her lips pursed over her 
 large square teeth while she hummed a tuneless 
 little tune like the droning of an extremely busy 
 bee. While she was never anything save brusk, 
 her manner was not unkind. I think in her pe- 
 culiar way she had become rather fond of me, 
 though her affection was absolutely free from 
 
46 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 demonstration, one way or the other. Only to 
 Hoang and me was vouchsafed this impersonal 
 approval, as though in her own mind we were 
 accepted as intellectual peers. 
 
 Being thus classed with the Oriental was 
 hardly flattering. To save my soul I could not 
 help regarding him with a vague dislike, with 
 suspicion; though of what I suspected him, it 
 would be hard to say. There was something in 
 his suddenly materializing behind you when he 
 was thought to be at the other end of the house, 
 something in the shock of raising your eyes to 
 find his unwinking black ones scrutinizing you, 
 which was disconcerting, to put it mildly. 
 
 Even Miss Drusilla, though generally oblivious 
 of everything save her own verbal ramblings, un- 
 consciously sensed this and made no attempt to 
 conceal her antipathy to " that heathen " as she 
 called him. This term was a little unfair, as 1 
 discovered one day when I passed Hoang's half- 
 opened door and caught a quick flash of the worn 
 Bible which lay on his corner table. 
 
 The only change in our daily program occurred 
 when Miss Haldayne made a trip in the machine 
 to the nearest town for supplies. For days be- 
 fore this would happen I could sense a rigidly 
 concealed dread in her mind, a grim buckling up 
 to some disagreeable task which must be done. 
 It was always early morning when she started, 
 
SHADOWS OF FEAR 47 
 
 very early, for she was missing from breakfast at 
 such times, and in the full glare of afternoon the 
 old machine would be seen limping on its return 
 trip along the lichen-grown road winding through 
 the sand-dunes. After such times I thought I 
 could detect a visible relief in her face and voice, 
 as though some danger had been safely rounded. 
 
 Her self-control was marvelous. She was one 
 of those stoical women who look upon a con- 
 fession of troubles as a sign of weakness. That 
 was why I was the more amazed when she sud- 
 denly stopped me one morning as I was leaving 
 the deserted breakfast-table. 
 
 Miss Drusilla ambled on, her creaking corsets 
 appearing to protest on their own account. The 
 children had run ahead; we were alone. I 
 thought my employer was about to make some 
 comment on my method with the children and a 
 trifle uneasily I was reviewing the past weeks in 
 my mind. Then I raised my eyes to hers as she 
 turned from the window to face me. I almost 
 recoiled visibly. Her face was tense and gray 
 with fright. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 WATCHING 
 
 THE clatter of Harry's heavy little shoes on 
 the uncarpeted parts of the stairs floated 
 back into the breakfast-room and was the only 
 sound to break the strained silence. The sight 
 of the generally stoical woman before me so un- 
 mistakably shaken, set my cowardly spirit atrem- 
 ble within me and I had great trouble keeping 
 my face expressionless. 
 
 I must have been successful, for Miss Haldayne 
 spoke abruptly as soon as the last faint scuffle 
 told that the children had reached the upper hall. 
 Her forehead was more deeply creased than usual, 
 but her tone was grim and her words as acid as 
 ever: 
 
 " Ann, are you one of those busy people who 
 have to stick their noses into everything and 
 have a black-and-white explanation of everything 
 before they do it? " 
 
 My craven soul was shaking, but I answered 
 this cryptic question stoutly enough : 
 
 48 
 
WATCHING 49 
 
 " I hope not, Miss Haldayne. It does n't 
 sound pleasant. Why? " 
 
 " Will you help me? — do me a favor? " She 
 put it grudgingly enough, running true to a life- 
 long habit of conferring and desiring no favors. 
 
 " If I can." I was secretly proud of my non- 
 committal tone. 
 
 " I want you to stand in the bay-window in 
 the back parlor and watch the sand-dunes toward 
 the east. I 'm watching the front — I know you 
 saw me — but I have n't eyes in the back of my 
 head and I can't watch two places at once." 
 
 " Why in the world do you do it? " was on the 
 tip of my indiscreet tongue, but luckily I remem- 
 bered and changed it to a quiet, " And if I see 
 anything? " • 
 
 I received an approving glance. " Tell me, of 
 course." 
 
 She led the way through the hall to the 
 gloomy back parlor. I followed, heart pounding, 
 face rigidly wooden, imagination aflame and run- 
 ning wildly once more. 
 
 At this early hour the side of the house was 
 in deep shadow. The room was austere and cold, 
 the solemn black walnut furniture stared un- 
 bendingly back at me. The high lights of the 
 glass of half-seen pictures on the wall were un- 
 pleasantly reminiscent of Joan's "shiny thing." 
 
 Outside the sun had broken through the fog 
 
50 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 and the dunes already swam in an ocean of light. 
 My mind was clamoring to know the reason for 
 all this mystery, but any spoken curiosity had 
 been effectively blocked by that remark anent 
 "busy people." 
 
 Here Miss Haldayne ensconced me behind the 
 curtain. My figure would be hidden to any one 
 looking up from outside, by the half-folded-back 
 shutter. My gaze was focussed through the wire 
 mesh to the trackless sand. 
 
 It was very still and a little awesome when 
 Miss Haldayne had left, securely shutting the 
 door which led to the hall. The thickness of the 
 walls kept any reassuring household noises from 
 penetrating. I was shut in with the heavy old 
 furniture and the unpleasant high lights and 
 was apparently as inanimate as they. A slow 
 chill began at the base of my spine and crept 
 disquietingly up to my hair. I resolutely turned 
 my eyes out the window lest I develop those 
 " nerves " which so roused Miss Haldayne's ire. 
 
 The sand had drifted high against the house on 
 this side and was a bare six feet below the win- 
 dow. From there it billowed away as far as the 
 eye could reach, a tawny ocean, petrified as it 
 w r as about to break into waves. 
 
 Hidden in the curtains, I kept my eyes fastened 
 on the waste until the muscles ached and little 
 flashes and swirls of light swam before me. 
 
WATCHING 51 
 
 What was I watching for? What was out there 
 hidden in the dunes, that " something " Miss 
 Haldayne feared? She was no ordinary woman 
 to take fright for a trifle. It must be a very 
 real danger which led to these precautions. I 
 found myself seeking out the likely hiding-places 
 within my view; finding a disquieting number 
 of them, — places for a body to press flat to the 
 hot sand, or squat cautiously with only the head 
 in view. 
 
 What was it Joan had said she saw in the 
 secret room? — "something all shiny, like a ter- 
 rible face"? The words carried a chill with 
 them. Unconsciously the notion persisted until 
 that became the thing for which I was looking, 
 out there in the dunes. I could imagine it star- 
 ing back at me, something less than human, ani- 
 mated by some diabolic form of life; seeing me 
 plainly despite the shielding shutter and the 
 wire mesh, enjoying with gleeful malice the false- 
 ness of my fancied security and chuckling to it- 
 self in the concealing bunch-grass. 
 
 What could it be, there in the secret room? 
 persisted my brain. Was there some connection 
 between it and this apparently aimless watching? 
 What could Joan have mistaken for " something 
 all shiny, like a terrible face"? Was there in 
 that room something living? — something that 
 Miss Haldayne alone visited? 
 
52 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 The crawl up my spine grew to an enormous 
 shiver and in desperation I turned my eyes rig- 
 idly on the dunes, striving to keep my mind a 
 blank. 
 
 The shadow of the house shortened, the sun 
 crept insidiously up and around. The dunes 
 seemed to gasp under the glare, their black, 
 abrupt reflections becoming less and less as noon 
 approached. In all the landscape there was not 
 a breath; nothing moved; the earth was a pros- 
 trate, exhausted thing cooped beneath the brazen 
 bowl of the sky. The soft swish of the ocean 
 did not penetrate here; the dunes brooded in 
 awful, heat-laden stillness. 
 
 My back ached from the straight-backed chair, 
 my eyes were growing heavy from staring into 
 the gleaming waste. I found myself slumped 
 forward, my forehead pressed hard against the 
 wooden leaves of the shutter. I had slept. Af- 
 ter that I disobeyed Miss Haldayne's orders 
 never to cease watching for a moment, and took a 
 brisk trot about the room. This stalled off sleep 
 for a while and I resumed my seat behind the 
 curtains, determined to see the day through no 
 matter how dreary. 
 
 The scene outside was unchanged, save that 
 the sand hummocks had begun to cast slight 
 black shadows on the other side. The heat was 
 unabating; a cloud of gnats danced drowsily just 
 
WATCHING 53 
 
 outside the window. It was the only sign of life 
 in all those miles. 
 
 A soft scuffling behind me set my head flying 
 around. Hoang stood there with my luncheon 
 on a tray, his marmoreal face expressing no sur- 
 prise at my peculiar occupation. 
 
 I ate like a sentry on duty, my eyes never de- 
 serting the scene straight ahead. When the tray 
 had been removed, and the door closed noise- 
 lessly behind Hoang's retreating figure, I settled 
 down to an endless wait again. The room was 
 not so hostile now. The afternoon light had 
 penetrated its gloom with a reflected glory, turn- 
 ing it to a sort of amber dusk. The tilted shut- 
 ters of the open window threw golden bars on the 
 faded carpet and across one dignified old arm- 
 chair in which no one had sat for years. 
 
 In all that scene my eyes finally chose and 
 focussed upon a great dune several hundred 
 yards away. It was the grandfather of all the 
 dunes, its top ridiculously like a bald head with 
 a straggling tuft of bunch-grass growing where 
 the ear-locks would be. It fell away to a series 
 of lower dunes on the right ; around the left of its 
 base was scooped a deep gully which reason told 
 me would be the logical approach of any one to- 
 ward the house. All was outlined in dazzling 
 light villainously unkind to the eyes. The top 
 began to swim as the day waned ; to my tired eyes 
 
54 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 bunch-grass, light, sand, and sky gradually ran 
 together in a conglomerate mass speckled with 
 blackness. 
 
 I don't know what awoke me. I don't even 
 know if I really slept or only swayed forward 
 as I had done so often before. I found myself 
 cold and rigidly erect in the chair, my eyes 
 directed to the clump of lupine which choked 
 the neck of the gully about the dune's base. 
 The lupines had shaken their purple spikes, and 
 in that still landscape the slight movement had 
 stood out in damning revealment. One tall 
 spray still swayed slightly; it would sway like 
 that if a figure had either wriggled into it or 
 away from the shelter of its branches. 
 
 My eyes ached with the intensity with which 
 I sought to penetrate the labyrinth of gloom and 
 black shadows entangled in its foliage. Over me 
 crept a horrible numbness, the ghost of fear when 
 we do not know what it is we fear. The swaying 
 of the topmost lupine had stopped now; the 
 whole scene swam in uninterrupted stillness and 
 heat. 
 
 Then my nerves jumped painfully again, and 
 the next minute relaxed weakly with relief. All 
 the lupine and bunch-grass in sight was swaying 
 and dancing. A little spray of sand blew loose 
 from the top of the great dune and scattered 
 cloud-like to the gully below. The afternoon 
 
WATCHING 55 
 
 winds had sprung up from the ocean and were 
 hurling themselves inland. 
 
 Then close upon the relief I felt stalked doubt. 
 The lupine in the gully had been sheltered ; even 
 now, while that on top of the dunes was all 
 a-blow, the shrubs in the low places were motion- 
 less. Yet the flowers in the gully had stirred, 
 and had stirred while all in sight was still ! 
 
 Common sense came forward a trifle wearily 
 with the plausible explanation that the little 
 gully created a draft. I snatched at the idea, in 
 the face of the motionless shrubs that confronted 
 me now, trying to talk away that canker of fear 
 that remained at the back of my mind to irri- 
 tate it. 
 
 No need to get hysterical over every growing 
 bush, I told myself severely. No need to torture 
 Miss Haldayne with ghosts of my own manufac- 
 ture. It must have been the wind. To-morrow 
 I would steal over to the little gully; I would 
 investigate, to lay the ridiculous fear that per- 
 sisted. If there had been any one under the 
 lupines the trodden sand would prove it. 
 
 But that resolve served to keep me alert all 
 the afternoon. Not until gray dusk closed coldly 
 over the scene, rendering vision uncertain, and 
 the sad fog wraiths drifted thinly between the 
 lonely hummocks of sand did Miss Haldayne 
 come to end my long vigil. 
 
56 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Her face was a blot of white against the dusk 
 of the room. I could not read her expression. 
 Her voice was as controlled as ever. 
 
 " Thank you, Ann," she said, almost gently ; 
 "you will be glad to go, I suppose. You must 
 be tired to death." 
 
 At the door she paused and her voice was a 
 trifle apologetic. " Don't say anything about 
 this to my sister or the children. They think you 
 were lying down in your room. I told 'em you 
 did n't feel well." 
 
 I assented of course, while my mind was strug- 
 gling as to whether or not I should tell of the 
 shaking lupine. It was on the tip of my tongue, 
 when, obeying some curious impulse, I crowded 
 it back again. Time enough for that when I had 
 investigated the gully for myself. I had no de- 
 sire to acknowledge that I had taken fright at 
 the wind, — nor that I had fallen asleep at my 
 post. 
 
 It might have been the weary note in her voice, 
 or the sense of conspiracy which bound us to- 
 gether, but for the first time I threw away my 
 customary caution in speaking to the woman be- 
 fore me and allowed my impulse to mature in 
 words. 
 
 " Miss Haldayne," I almost gulped in my ex- 
 citement, " I don't want you to think I 'm a 
 ' busy ' person, and of course if you don't want to 
 
WATCHING 57 
 
 tell me I don't mind, but is there anything I can 
 do to help you ? I — I 've never betrayed a con- 
 fidence." 
 
 She hesitated, there in the gloom, and her voice 
 came deeper, the nearest to a caress Eliza Hal- 
 dayne seemed able to come. 
 
 " You 're a nice girl, Ann Belmont." That 
 was all, but she still stood motionless. I re- 
 mained where I was, scarcely breathing, my eyes 
 turned on the white patch which was her face. 
 
 I realize now that it must have meant a tre- 
 mendous struggle for this self-reliant, austere 
 woman to break the habit of a lifetime; but it 
 was a silent struggle, its presence showing only 
 in her indecision. When she did speak it was 
 to have the words drag reluctantly from her. 
 
 " Maybe it would be best ; it 's getting beyond 
 me. It 's beginning to frazzle my nerves, I '11 
 admit." 
 
 Again a silence, which I did not seek to break ; 
 then suddenly, as one who feared she might 
 weaken, she said abruptly : " Come on up to my 
 room. Maybe you can help." 
 
 Miss Haldayne's room was as severely prac- 
 tical and neat as that of a New England spinster. 
 From the circular blue-and-gray rag carpet on 
 the floor to the sparkling chimney on the enamel- 
 based kerosene lamp standing primly in the cen- 
 ter of a crocheted doily on a small marble-topped 
 
58 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 table at the bed's head, there was not an article 
 in it which was not absolutely homely and use- 
 ful. One thing alone struck an incongruous 
 note. Where one looked to see fresh, severely 
 starched scrim curtains to bear out the clean 
 severity of the rest of the room, thick velvet 
 hangings met the eye, their faded red a discord 
 in this austere spotlessness. Through those 
 folds no gleam of light could penetrate at night, 
 to mark the house to a watcher on the dunes. It 
 sounded again the note of tense caution which I 
 sensed over the rest of the place and I turned to 
 Miss Haldayne with visible relief in finding some 
 tangible footing at last in this sea of vague- 
 ness. 
 
 She had grimly unlocked an old-fashioned 
 writing-desk standing between the windows and 
 taking a paper from one of the pigeonholes she 
 crossed to me. 
 
 After the slightest hesitation, as though al- 
 ready regretting her decision, she thrust it at 
 me. " Eead that ! " curtly. 
 
 Handwriting straggled across the paper — 
 large, ill-formed characters, almost childishly 
 penciled : 
 
 You're a fool to think you can hide. If not to-day, 
 to-morrow. But sometime they'll come as surely as day 
 breaks because — 
 
WATCHING 59 
 
 The uneven letters dribbled off the paper, 
 either because they ran to the edge, or because 
 the writer was alarmed and dared not stop to 
 finish. 
 
 I read them twice, and again the slow chill be- 
 gan at the base of my spine because of the vague 
 threat hid in the words. Then I raised my eyes 
 to Miss Haldayne's face. 
 
 She was watching me closely, almost desperate, 
 like one who grasps at a straw of comfort. 
 
 " I found that lying on my desk when I woke 
 this morning." 
 
 " What does it mean? " 
 
 For a moment her lips tightened, then : " I 
 don't know." And I knew she lied. 
 
 " But I don't understand — " 
 
 " Neither do I," replied Eliza Haldayne, iras- 
 cibly. Talking about it appeared to ease the 
 strain a trifle. " Once before it happened. I 
 have a sort of premonition of it. All the day 
 before I ? m particularly stirred up and nervous." 
 
 The confession from the usually stoical 
 woman, the very admission that her rigid body 
 held nerves, I recognized as a sign of the intense 
 strain she was under. 
 
 " Tell me about it," I said soothingly. 
 
 " There 's nothing to tell, I told you." She 
 took out some of the tension on me. " I got up 
 this morning and saw my desk open. I never 
 
60 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 leave my things untidy like that. That was the 
 way I found the other note." 
 
 " What did the other one say? " 
 
 In answer she turned and took a piece of paper 
 from a second pigeonhole. It was in the same 
 rambling writing; contained the same veiled 
 threat : 
 
 How long do you think you can keep it up? — burying 
 your head in the sand like an ostrich. There's always a 
 day of reckoning and when they come — 
 
 then an undecipherable word trailing off the 
 paper as it had upon the other note. 
 
 I looked up, more at sea than ever. " And 
 you have n't any idea who wrote it? " 
 
 "Who could write it?" Miss Haldayne was 
 frankly impatient. " For Heaven's sake, Ann, I 
 thought you might help instead of asking foolish 
 questions ! " 
 
 This was not undeserved and I took it meekly, 
 studying the notes again. There was a vague- 
 ness about them which suggested the rambling 
 taunts of a child or the irresponsibility of a de- 
 mented person. I checked a shiver and turned 
 the paper over. The other side was blank. 
 
 " Have you ever seen paper like this before? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Of course; it ? s my own. The kind I keep in 
 my desk all the time. Somebody gets in and 
 
WATCHING 61 
 
 writes it in this room while I 'm asleep. That 's 
 just it; how do they do it? The writing-desk is 
 locked, when I go to bed. How do they get in, 
 in the first place? There is n't a window in the 
 whole place that can be entered. I went over 
 'em all to-day. The mesh is undisturbed and the 
 shutters lock from the inside. The first time, 
 I thought they might have gotten in that way, so 
 I put the mesh up. Doors are out of the ques- 
 tion ; every one 's locked at night and in the 
 evening the whole house is lit and I go over it. 
 They couldn't get in and hide. Hoang looks, 
 too, before he blows the lamps out, before he 
 comes upstairs." 
 
 This failed to reassure me. Knowing her prej- 
 udice in Hoang' s favor, I spoke hesitatingly: 
 " You don't suppose he — " 
 
 My unspoken suspicion was met with the dis- 
 dain I had expected. " Ann, don't be absurd. 
 Why should Hoang write anything so ridicu- 
 lous? " 
 
 " Why should any one? " I answered stoutly. 
 
 I had her there, in the face of her denial as to 
 the note's meaning. For a moment we stared 
 blankly at each other. The grayness of Miss 
 Haldayne's face had not faded, though she was 
 making a desperate effort to remain noncommit- 
 tal. I was fighting a desire to glance nervously 
 over my shoulder in the dusk. " They " sug- 
 
62 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 gested a collection of enemies and we were only 
 two women in a great lonely house. 
 
 " I don't know what the notes mean " — she 
 stuck to her lie bravely, though her lips were blue 
 and taut — " but that is n't what 's bothering me, 
 Ann; it's — how do they get in?" This last 
 was a whisper of anguish. 
 
 I looked about at the walls, with some wild 
 idea about sliding panels and secret rooms. The 
 walls, however, were like those in the rest of the 
 rooms, smooth white plaster. There were two 
 long windows, narrow and shuttered. The up- 
 per veranda did not extend along this side of 
 the house and there was a thirty-foot drop to the 
 dismal garden below. Even assuming one could 
 enter the bedroom, how could he enter the house 
 to begin with, strictly guarded as it was? 
 
 Miss Haldayne was speaking still in that low, 
 tense voice: 
 
 " That childish handwriting is affected, of 
 course. The language is n't childish ; no child 
 could think up and carry out a thing like that. 
 Besides, the children don't know — " she checked 
 herself abruptly, as though realizing that she 
 had said too much. 
 
 " Hoang — " I was beginning, unable to shake 
 off my distrust of the Chinaman. 
 
 "Ann, for Heaven's sake leave Hoang alone, 
 will you? I tell you he did n't ! " 
 
WATCHING 63 
 
 " Well, that only leaves Miss Drusilla and me," 
 I said, exasperated. " You know I did n't. Do 
 you think your sister did? " 
 
 I trembled inwardly at this unlucky speech 
 when I recalled the dislike which existed between 
 the two women, but Miss Haldayne disposed of 
 it characteristically: " Drusilla? No; Drusilla 
 has n't brains enough ! " she said with unflatter- 
 ing frankness. 
 
 A horrible suspicion had flashed into my mind. 
 Were these all the inmates of the house? Sup- 
 pose that room at the bottom of the staircase held 
 something living; something which crawled up 
 here in the dead of night while we lay sleeping 
 and opened the door with devilish cleverness — 
 " something all shiny, like a terrible face." I 
 shivered and plunged into unwise speech. 
 
 " If there was anything in the house — any- 
 thing — that felt spite and took this way to an- 
 noy you — " I felt that she must surely get my 
 drift and fall upon the possible explanation. 
 But Miss Haldayne's face was frankly puzzled as 
 I faltered. 
 
 " Ann, what in the world are you driving at? 
 Do you think disembodied spirits are hanging 
 around to play tricks? No, sir," she answered 
 herself grimly. " Who ever wrote that is human, 
 though they may be pure devil inside. But how 
 in the world do they get in? " 
 
64 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 I thought of all the mystery stories I had read, 
 and ventured the next in a rather shamefaced 
 manner : " You 're sure there 's no underground 
 tunnel or anything like that? " 
 
 The idea excited no ridicule. For a moment 
 she studied it gravely, then picked up the lamp 
 and turned to the door. " Come on," she said 
 grimly. " I never thought of that." 
 
 Luckily we met no one on the stairs or they 
 would have been amazed to see the supposedly- 
 sick me, trailing Miss Haldayne with a lighted 
 lamp in her hand through the bright hall. As 
 usual, when twilight fell Hoang had lit the num- 
 erous lamps and now each blazed on its little 
 individual shelf surrounded by its own golden 
 radiance. 
 
 The Chinaman was washing dishes in the 
 warm, bright kitchen as we passed through. 
 Again, as I looked at him, those unreasoning 
 suspicions crowded my brain. Miss Haldayne, 
 on the contrary, spoke to him with unusual gen- 
 tleness, as though in defiance of my unspoken 
 thoughts. 
 
 From one corner of the large kitchen a flight 
 of rough wooden steps led to the cellar below. 
 This was cement-walled and floored; stoutly 
 made, to withstand the drifting sand outside, 
 Our heels rang uncomfortably loud on the hard 
 floor and the shadows danced before us as we 
 
WATCHING 65 
 
 moved with our lamps — I had obtained one in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 We searched the enormous basement from one 
 end to the other, holding our lamps high to exam- 
 ine the walls in their entirety, our silhouettes 
 bobbing about with our movements. There was 
 not the slightest thing on which to hang suspi- 
 cion, not even though we tugged away boxes and 
 barrels stored in one corner, and got ourselves 
 hot and dusty moving potato-sacks. 
 
 As we came up the wooden stairs again and 
 blew out the lamps on gaining the top I could 
 not resist speaking. " You 're perfectly sure 
 there 's no one else in the house besides Miss 
 Drusilla and the children and Hoang? " 
 
 " Of course," returned Miss Haldayne, irrita- 
 bly. " Why do you harp on that string so much, 
 Ann? » 
 
 There was nothing I could say to this without 
 revealing too keen an interest in that room at 
 the foot of the stairs, so I kept still. 
 
 " No," — Miss Haldayne paused on her way up 
 to her room again — " there 's no two ways about 
 it. Some one got into the house — the good Lord 
 knows how ! — and wrote that." 
 
 A spasm of fright seemed to descend upon her 
 at the thought of her bedroom being silently en- 
 tered in the middle of the night and an involun- 
 tary shiver shook me. 
 
66 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " I got it into my head that those words they 
 used — ' If not to-day, to-morrow — ' meant that 
 they — that something or other might try to get 
 into the place to-day. That 's why I had you 
 watch, Ann." 
 
 She was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on 
 something I could n't see, her thoughts far away. 
 A gray weariness had fallen on her face, a dread 
 which was wearing her out. I felt a gush of pity 
 for the lonely woman ; and as if she sensed it, she 
 withdrew her gaze until it rested on my face and 
 her tone was so kind as to startle me: 
 
 " Kun along now and get some supper. You 
 look all tuckered out. You 're a good girl, Ann." 
 Her hand shoved me gently and kindly toward 
 the stairs. " Go get some rest." 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 WHAT THE SAND REVEALED 
 
 THE next morning a slight restraint ap- 
 peared in Miss Haldayne's manner toward 
 me. Already she regretted her confidence, I 
 could read in her averted glance; and, catching 
 my clue from this, I returned her brief nod with 
 the briefest of " Good mornings " and gave my 
 entire attention to the two children. Apparently 
 no third mysterious note had been left and Eliza 
 Haldayne once more felt capable of handling the 
 situation alone. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast, as though fearful 
 that I might refer to the happenings of yester- 
 day, she slipped into the kitchen while Miss 
 Drusilla's ample figure still blocked the en- 
 trance; but one quick glance over my shoulder 
 as I started with Joan and Harry on the morn- 
 ing walk revealed the now familiar bulge in the 
 velvet hangings of the bay-window and I knew 
 that the odd woman was keeping her lonely vigil 
 over us. 
 
 The children's chatter spattered off me like so 
 many rain-drops this morning. My thoughts, as 
 
 67 
 
68 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 well as my eyes, ever recurred in dread to the 
 great bald-headed dune toward the east where 
 yesterday the lupine had moved. I set the chil- 
 dren wild with delight by allowing them to wade 
 in the shallow margin of the little bay, while I 
 sat atop a high dune near them, guardian of two 
 small pairs of shoes and stockings. The sun had 
 broken through the fog early that morning; be- 
 fore me a sea of ultramarine and silver flashed 
 and danced unbroken to the Orient. The bare, 
 ugly beach was becomingly hidden by its shining 
 ripples ; hidden, too, were the murderous-looking 
 ropes of kelp. The little creek which meandered 
 through the sand, almost sinking into it before 
 reaching the water, was a thin trickle of silver. 
 Swooping sea-gulls and the two laughing chil- 
 dren playing tag with the waves removed the 
 brooding loneliness which generally hung sinis- 
 terly over the dreary little inlet. 
 
 But my eyes would ever turn to the gully on 
 the east and to the menacing growth of lupine 
 which choked it. From here I could trace it 
 back; a perfect passageway between the great 
 dune and its shorter neighbor; an alley down 
 which a man could wriggle his length unseen 
 from the house he watched. But, however I 
 strained my eyes through the bright morning 
 light, 1 could discern no movement in the bushes 
 to-day. 
 
WHAT THE SAND KEVEALED 69 
 
 Not until the middle of the afternoon was I 
 able to carry out the resolve I had made the 
 day before. I had picked my time well, I silently 
 congratulated myself, as I walked with forced 
 leisure down the shadowy upper hall. Unmis- 
 takable noises from behind Miss Drusilla's door 
 bore witness to her slumbers. Miss Haldayne I 
 had seen descend the stairs kitchenward a few 
 minutes before. The children's treble voices 
 floated in through the opened French window, 
 pleasantly intermingled with the roar of the 
 ocean. 
 
 At the top of the stairs I suddenly hesitated, 
 overcome by a new impulse. There was a mo- 
 ment of silent struggle, then I was speeding up 
 the hall again and dow T n the stairs at the opposite 
 end, the stairs which led down to Joan's mysteri- 
 ous " Bluebeard Chamber." 
 
 At the landing in the bend I checked myself 
 and remained peering with big eyes down into 
 the gloom below. There was nothing very terri- 
 fying about the closed door, viewed dispassion- 
 ately. The tall, thin window beside me gave a 
 vista of wind-swept, sun-flooded sand-dunes bil- 
 lowing away to the horizon. My imagination, 
 however, painted Joan's fearful little figure hid- 
 ing behind the faded red curtains, her round 
 brown eyes fastened on the door in the shadows 
 below me. From the angle of the stairs here it 
 
70 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 would be perfectly possible to obtain a slanting 
 view into the room if the door were open. The 
 thought that " something " — " all shiny, like 
 a terrible face " — might even now be staring 
 straight toward me, its baleful gaze stopped only 
 by an inch or two of wood, sent a cold chill down 
 my back. 
 
 A stealthy noise behind me wheeled me about, 
 all nerves. The light from the window slanted 
 harshly across the still figure of Hoang, standing 
 there watching me, Heaven alone knows how 
 long. A blind panic descended upon me at the 
 unexpectedness of it; my dislike rasped in my 
 voice when I was able to speak : 
 
 " What do you want? Why did you sneak up 
 on me like that? " 
 
 He bobbed his head, his long black eyes in- 
 scrutable. His tone was as bland as ever. 
 
 " Missy Haldayne sen me linen-closet. Fetch- 
 em new towels for kitchen." 
 
 u The linen-closet is nearer the other stairs 
 than these ! " I answered hotly. " Why did you 
 come down this way? " 
 
 " Missy Haldayne say fetchem towels." His 
 impassive stare displayed not the slightest em- 
 barrassment at the way I had trapped him. It 
 was as though a curtain had been drawn close 
 beneath the surface of those narrow eyes, and of 
 
WHAT THE SAND REVEALED 71 
 
 the curious emotions swarming within I could 
 only guess. 
 
 A sense of the maddening futility of my indig- 
 nation surged over me. I forced myself to turn 
 my back and continue dignifiedly down the stairs 
 as though that had been my intention all along. 
 Behind me came the soft pitter-patter of Hoang's 
 slippers as he followed me, sending little shivers 
 of dislike chasing themselves up and down my 
 spine. 
 
 The salt wind was grateful to my hot face as I 
 struck off across the dunes. An anxious glance 
 over my shoulder revealed no watcher from the 
 house; apparently I had not been seen to leave. 
 Hoang had left me before I reached the front 
 door. 
 
 I kept to the water along the frequented 
 ground, nevertheless, branching inland only 
 when I reached the farther side of the great dune 
 where I had sat that morning. 
 
 It was comparatively easy for me to keep out 
 of sight of the house by working my way from 
 swale to swale until I was well within the 
 forbidden territory which Miss Haldayne had 
 watched so assiduously from the bay-window. 
 
 It was very hot in the deep gully around the 
 great dune. The sand here had formed a crust 
 which broke under my feet with little crackling 
 
72 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 noises. Toward the right the ground sloped 
 away more levelly and the house towered ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 Some words of Tennyson drifted idly into my 
 head at the sight of it and I repeated them whim- 
 sically under my breath as I cautiously followed 
 up the little gully : 
 
 " With one black shadow at its feet, 
 
 The house through all the level shines, 
 Close latticed to the brooding heat 
 And silent in its dusty vines." 
 
 I became abruptly still, while a curious, cold 
 dismay crept up from my heart. My eyes had 
 not played tricks on me yesterday. The sand 
 beneath the lupines was scuffed as though a body 
 had pressed there, and simultaneously I became 
 aware of a pair of eyes watching me through the 
 shelter of another group perhaps twenty-five feet 
 farther up the gully — unwinking, Chinese eyes. 
 
 After that first second of breathless horror, 
 my mind gripped suddenly and became cool. I 
 had not betrayed myself by any outward start, — 
 of this I felt sure. I forced my shrinking figure 
 to turn with elaborate carelessness and I pulled 
 a lupine from its dry twig with hands whose 
 shaking was mercifully hidden from those watch- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 Instinctively I seized what seemed the only 
 
WHAT THE SAND KEVEALED 73 
 
 course to follow. It was apparent that the si- 
 lent watcher believed himself unobserved and I 
 forced myself to act upon that belief; to appear 
 taking a casual stroll while I stealthily worked 
 my way back to the house. 
 
 I could feel that my face had gone white and 
 cold, but my back remained stiff as I deliberately 
 turned it on that hidden figure and sauntered 
 back down the gully, every now and then pausing 
 to tear a lupine from the bushes lining the side, 
 quite as though red-hot tingles were not chasing 
 themselves up and down my spine. I was called 
 to fight the almost overwhelming urge to throw 
 discretion to the winds and race madly for the 
 house looming so temptingly near. More than 
 once my strained imagination caught at the little 
 trifling noises of the dunes — the rustle of wind 
 through the bunch-grass, the whisper among 
 the dried twigs of the lupine, or the almost im- 
 perceptible passage of a gopher over the crust of 
 the ground — and twisted them into the lurking 
 footfalls of that silent watcher, risen from his 
 bed of sand and silently pursuing me down the 
 gully. 
 
 The thought brought such a weight of terror to 
 drag upon my steps that I deliberately dropped 
 a flower as an excuse to turn around. Only the 
 lupines swaying in the wind and the sun-flooded 
 sand-dunes met my eyes ; a quick flash before my 
 
74 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 lashes swept down showed no pursuing figure. 
 That silent form was still prostrate behind the 
 whispering shrubs; the slanting eyes, I made 
 never a doubt, still clamped to my loitering 
 figure. 
 
 My courage had nearly dwindled when I 
 mounted the shallow wooden steps of the house ; 
 my body was benumbed, every nerve strained to 
 hold myself down to a walk. It required all my 
 strength to turn the handle of the door. I 
 slipped into the shadowy hall and shot the bolt 
 after me, then my knees turned to water and I 
 slumped dizzily on the lowest step, sitting there 
 lackadaisically like Ophelia, the purple flowers 
 drooping from my nerveless hand. 
 
 A hot flash of fear pricked my tortured nerves 
 from their lethargy the next minute. In the 
 half -opened door of the front parlor Hoang sud- 
 denly appeared. 
 
 There was something which spoke of a smolder- 
 ing excitement beneath the Chinaman's usually 
 calm exterior. It fairly hissed through his 
 words as he nearly pounced on me. 
 
 "Missy Belmont, you see — something? Out 
 there on dunes? You see something? " 
 
 The staccato words roused a frightened indig- 
 nation in me. I knew, now, as well as though I 
 had actually watched him, that Hoang had been 
 peering behind those front red curtains while I 
 
WHAT THE SAND REVEALED 75 
 
 made my painful way back to the house. Was 
 there some bond between this too-plausible Ori- 
 ental and that narrow-eyed watcher in the sand? 
 How otherwise would Hoang guess that I might 
 have seen something? My attitude could be mis- 
 taken for weariness; my expression, I was cer- 
 tain, had remained under control. His words 
 revealed guilty knowledge. He feared that his 
 accomplice had been discovered ; this I read into 
 his unwonted agitation. 
 
 Oddly enough, this strengthened my anger and 
 lessened my fright. I fixed my eyes upon him 
 and replied severely : " I don't know what you 
 mean, Hoang. Did I see what? What is there 
 to be seen on the dunes? " 
 
 He seemed to realize his mistake. The blank 
 curtains were drawn over his black eyes again 
 and the light, slanting through the narrow red 
 panels of glass on each side of the front door, 
 showed his neck muscles stiffen as though he got 
 them under control. 
 
 " I think you seem — 'flaid. You walk quick ; 
 bleathe fast," he fended. 
 
 The thought that those two pairs of spying 
 eyes had watched my defenseless figure sent a 
 cold shiver down me again, but I answered boldly 
 enough : " I 'm afraid of nothing, Hoang ; do you 
 hear that? / 'm afraid of nothing! " 
 
 I had risen and was staring fiercely at him as 
 
76 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 I flung out this defiance, my chin raised, all 
 my dislike for him allowed to show frankly in 
 my face. 
 
 His own gaze dropped — guiltily, I thought. 
 " Missy Belmont, you velly blave lady," and I 
 seemed to detect a note of mockery running 
 through the simple remark. 
 
 I left him standing in the hall as I mounted 
 the stairs to my own room, the slanting light 
 from the door panels picking his figure out like 
 a faint red ghost amid the surrounding shadows. 
 In my own room I dropped the lupines on the 
 bed, noticing how my feverish clutch on their 
 stems had stained my hands. My heart was 
 beating like a trip-hammer. I forced myself to 
 wash my face deliberately, in cold water, and re- 
 arrange my wind-blown hair; then with a re- 
 gained calm, outwardly at least, I sought Miss 
 Haldayne. 
 
 I had not far to seek. As I stepped through 
 the doorway I saw her capable figure swooping 
 up the hall toward the linen-closet, her arms 
 piled high with Joan's little dresses and Harry's 
 shirts, still warm from the ironing-board. She 
 was droning her little unmusical tune, a sign that 
 the world was turning well with her. She 
 wheeled as I called her name, the dreary little 
 tune dying on her lips ; a slight frown of annoy- 
 ance appearing between her level black brows. 
 
WHAT THE SAND KEVEALED 77 
 
 It was apparent that I still reminded her un- 
 pleasantly of her regretted confidence. 
 
 "Well, Ann?" Her tone was frankly impa- 
 tient. " Good lands ! you look peaked to-day ! 
 A person 'd think you 'd seen a ghost." 
 
 " I have n't seen a ghost, Miss Haldayne," I 
 replied, in what I was relieved to find was a 
 quiet, steady tone. " I Ve seen something very 
 much alive, up there in the sand-dunes." 
 
 For a moment the dark blood gushed into her 
 face, then seeped slowly away, leaving a grayish 
 tinge in its wake. She stood rigid, her fierce 
 black eyes burning into mine. 
 
 " What do you mean? Speak plain," she fi- 
 nally rasped out. 
 
 "Yesterday, while I was watching, I saw the 
 lupines move, over toward the great dune at the 
 east of the house. I did n't say anything to you, 
 for I thought it was only the wind. Then I got 
 to thinking it over and I was n't satisfied. I 
 decided to see for myself. I went there this af- 
 ternoon. There was some scuffed-up sand, as 
 though somebody 'd crawled on all fours under 
 the shrubs; and not only that, but while I was 
 looking I felt some one's eyes upon me. Then I 
 saw a Chinaman's face, half hidden in the lupine 
 and bunch-grass farther up the gully." 
 
 " Go on ! " I should never have recognized the 
 hoarse tones. 
 
78 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 u I was sure he did n't know I 'd seen him, so 
 I pretended that I was only gathering lupines 
 and I worked my way back to the house. That 's 
 all." 
 
 There was a strained silence for perhaps half a 
 minute; then a visible pulling together of the 
 woman before me, and I was hurt and vastly 
 astonished to hear her loud laugh of scorn. 
 
 " Ann, you 're developing nerves ! You prob- 
 ably saw a stone or something, and took it for a 
 face. Or tramps. You know I told you to keep 
 away from those sand-dunes. You might have 
 wakened a tramp from his afternoon nap." 
 
 " A Chinese tramp ! " I said quietly. 
 
 "Why not?" She came back at me bellig- 
 erently. " Besides, chances are he was n't Chi- 
 nese — if you did see any one, and I 'm not admit- 
 ting you did." 
 
 I did not grow angry. There was something 
 pitiful in her brave attempt at poise. 
 
 " I 'm sure of it, Miss Haldayne," I said gently. 
 "And the man was Chinese. When I returned 
 to the house I saw Hoang in the hall. He had 
 been watching me from the parlor window. It 
 would be easy for him to be in touch with the 
 Chinaman in the dunes. Oh, Miss Haldayne, 
 Hoang's at the bottom of whatever 's worrying 
 you, I 'm sure of it ! I don't trust him for a 
 minute ! " 
 
WHAT THE SAND REVEALED 79 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Ann ! " and this time her 
 tone was frankly impatient. " Don't harp on 
 that string any more! To listen to you, a per- 
 son 'd think poor Hoang ought to be hung. You 
 saw a tramp in the dunes, if you saw anybody." 
 She suddenly switched. " There 's Harry cry- 
 ing. He 's probably fallen and bumped that sore 
 place on his forehead again. Run along, Ann, 
 and see what ails him, will you? " 
 
 Hurt and angry, I turned away and walked 
 down the hall to the upper veranda overlooking 
 the ocean. Just as I reached an angle of the 
 wall I glanced involuntarily back. 
 
 Miss Haldayne was standing rigid, as I had 
 left her, her face stamped with gray fear, while 
 clean clothes, fallen from the stack in her arms, 
 lay unheeded on the floor about her. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 
 
 THAT night, at the supper-table, Miss Dru- 
 silla was unusually loquacious, insisting on 
 telling in detail of a house-party she had at- 
 tended some twenty years before, where, it ap- 
 peared to my rather spasmodic attention, a Po- 
 lish prince and an army officer had proposed to 
 her and two scions of our very best families had 
 come to blows over the favor of a dance. We 
 received the details of her dress down to the last 
 stitch; what this one had said and that one had 
 thought, and just how cattily the other one had 
 acted. Encouraged by the preoccupation of her 
 usual dragon, she grew expansive and droned 
 throughout the courses like Tennyson's brook. 
 
 The children too were full of animal spirits 
 to-night; fortunately, for Miss Haldayne and I 
 sat there like specters at the feast. Each time 
 Hoang passed behind my chair I involuntarily 
 shrunk within myself, — how noticeably, I did 
 not realize until I caught Miss Haldayne's black 
 eyes fixed on me in frank impatience. My dis- 
 
 80 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 81 
 
 trust of the servant was becoming a veritable ob- 
 session with me, and I sensed that Hoang some- 
 how felt this and that in his peculiar way he 
 resented it, though his manner remained as im- 
 penetrable as ever while he served me. 
 
 The lamps had been lighted early that night, 
 I noticed, as I accompanied the children upstairs 
 after dinner. Though it was still gray twilight 
 outside, they were all blazing on their myriad 
 little shelves, thrusting the farthest corners into 
 yellow relief and painting our mammoth black 
 shadows on the plastered walls as we toiled up 
 the narrow staircase. Miss Haldayne's queer 
 dread of the dark had illuminated the entire 
 place to-night. From the top of the staircase 
 the upper hall stretched away reassuringly 
 empty to the duplicate steps of the other end, 
 where they plunged down to mellow gloom. To 
 my morbid fancy the curtains seemed drawn 
 together with greater care this evening; not the 
 slightest flicker of yellow light could betray an 
 opening to that silent watcher on the dark dunes. 
 
 The evening play hour broke in on my abstrac- 
 tion, luckily, for my nerves were growing ragged. 
 Since the inauguration of the romps on the sand, 
 and the relief of having a companion to whom 
 they could speak their fearful little minds, the 
 children had learned to play like normal imps. 
 It was impossible to review real fears while fol- 
 
82 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 lowing Joan's long legs as we flew from two 
 hundred imaginary savages gallantly headed by 
 Harry on a rocking horse. Not until each was 
 tucked in their little cot, Joan's dark head rest- 
 ing uneasily on rag knobs (for she had coaxed me 
 into making "rag curls"), not until I had re- 
 ceived two moist kisses in good night and had 
 blown out their light, did that ever recurring 
 dread swoop down upon my cowering mind once 
 more. 
 
 I had just shut the children's door behind me, 
 preparatory to stepping into my own room, w T hen 
 I saw Miss Haldayne coming up the hall. She 
 seemed barely to see me as she passed ; her " good 
 night " was perfunctory, her black eyes were ab- 
 stracted. She carried an old tin lantern, one I 
 had never before seen, and disappeared with it 
 into the lighted cavern of her own room as I 
 entered mine. 
 
 After making myself ready for bed, I stood in 
 the dark, my face close to the wire mesh of the 
 open window. The night wind blew softly cool 
 about me ; I could hear its faint stir as it swept 
 over the unseen sand-dunes below. There was no 
 moon and the stars were blotted out by a high 
 fog. The complaining murmur of the sea came 
 out of hollow blackness w T hich seemed to encom- 
 pass the silent house in the center of a new and 
 lonely world. I turned my face in the direction 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 83 
 
 of the big dune, my fancy fearfully picturing the 
 narrow-eyed watcher creeping closer in the 
 cloaking darkness. I shivered; then, Scotch 
 common sense overcoming Irish imagination, I 
 trotted over to the big bed, ascertaining first that 
 I had locked the door. 
 
 As I snuggled down between the cold sheets I 
 attempted to concentrate on the happenings of 
 the last two days. This was the quiet reflection 
 to which I had been looking forward since din- 
 ner-time. Was there any connection between 
 that silent watcher in the dunes and the mysteri- 
 ous notes? If there was, how had the writer 
 entered the house always lighted and guarded 
 so carefully? What had Hoang to do with it? 
 What had his agitation as I entered meant? 
 Miss Drusilla liked him as little as I did ; the chil- 
 dren were afraid of his unsmiling silence; yet 
 Miss Haldayne so vehemently asserted his inno- 
 cence. Hoang; the silent watcher; the threat- 
 ening notes, and the secret room, — what were 
 their sinister connection with one another? 
 
 I thought I was studying it with cool delibera- 
 tion, when sleep overtook me. I was imprisoned 
 beneath a vast net, a net which to my dreaming 
 fancy brushed the stars and crowded the horizon, 
 yet which entangled by struggling footsteps as I 
 endeavored to escape. I was struggling fran- 
 tically, blindly ; its dark mesh was over my face, 
 
84 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 over my whole body, my skin crawled with the 
 feel of it, disgustingly like the soft cling of cob- 
 webs. I was plucking it, loathingly from my 
 face, trying to scream and unable to do more 
 than emit an agonized whisper, when, with a 
 crash which echoed and thundered drearily 
 through what seemed miles of my brain, the sky 
 fell. 
 
 I found myself bathed in a cold perspiration 
 and sitting upright; my staring eyes strained 
 through the darkness while the whole house 
 ached with the ring of the noise which had broken 
 my nightmare. For a moment I was held rigid 
 with terror; then, muffled by the plaster wall be- 
 tween, I heard screams of fright from Joan and 
 Harry. 
 
 I jumped from my warm bed and ran to the 
 door. The key was not in the lock; my bare foot 
 encountered it on the floor where it had fallen. 
 As I fumbled to find the lock in the darkness I 
 called to the frightened children that I was 
 coming. 
 
 Smothered by the two doors, came Harry's 
 frightened and honest wail : " I 'm scared ! " but 
 his sobs lessened with the comfort of my voice. 
 My groping fingers found the lock and with a 
 little gasp of relief I thrust the key in, only to 
 turn cold to the ends of my bare toes. My door 
 was locked from the other side. 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 85 
 
 I think the frightened knowledge of that held 
 me rigid for a full half -minute, afraid to move 
 in the cold darkness. The children's muffled 
 wails redoubled, Joan's tearful treble urging me 
 to " Hurry please ! " 
 
 My throat was dry and stiff when I finally 
 found my voice. Placing my lips to the crack 
 of the door, where the sound would carry the 
 most easily to the next room, I shouted, the ring 
 of my own voice in my ears setting my heart to 
 throbbing painfully : 
 
 " Joan, listen ! Something 's happened to the 
 lock of my door. Take Harry and run to Miss 
 Drusilla's room if you 're too frightened to stay 
 alone." 
 
 Her tearful voice floated faintly back. "We 
 — can't, Miss Belmont. Our door 's locked too. 
 Oh, I 'm so scared ! " 
 
 That sent me limp against the damp wall. 
 Both the children and I had been locked in our 
 rooms. Why? By whom? 
 
 Between the muffled sobs next door there 
 seemed an ominous silence brooding over the rest 
 of the house. No noise had come from Miss Hal- 
 dayne's room farther down the hall, nor from 
 Miss Drusilla's, almost directly opposite ; yet the 
 sound of the shot — if it had been a shot — could 
 not have failed to awaken them. The key on the 
 other side of my door kept me from seeing 
 
86 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 through the keyhole, but the crack at the bottom 
 showed no light lit in the corridor outside. 
 
 I was opening my dry lips to call some weak 
 comfort to the sobbing youngsters when the 
 dawning words were smothered in my throat. A 
 high, treble scream — a howl, rather — thin- 
 edged, like the almost unendurable shriek of a 
 violin bow, vibrated through the darkness. 
 Long-drawn, falling, sinking, rising abruptly 
 again: "Ai-ee! Ai-ee!" Through its monoto- 
 nous cadence, more dreadful for its very lack of 
 human expression, I heard the children's muffled 
 sobs stop, silenced by chill terror. My own 
 blood was chilled, I felt my muscles tense; 
 smothered though it was by dark distance and 
 the sheltering door, the sound made the darkness 
 to palpitate about me and become tangible and 
 threatening. 
 
 " Ai-ee! Ai-ee! " 
 
 My heart choked with the frightened blood 
 which flung itself back on it. What, in God's 
 name, was down there in the dark dining-room ! 
 
 Then, when it seemed that human nerves must 
 snap before the fear of the unknown ; that human 
 ear-drums could not stand the shrill terror of it, 
 it stopped — stopped with horrible suddenness, 
 as when a hand falls upon a windpipe, and the 
 ringing silence which rushed in was quite as 
 ominous in its own way. 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 87 
 
 I felt something wet trickling down my fore- 
 head — cold perspiration forced out through ter- 
 ror. I brushed it away automatically, and the 
 movement, slight as it was, broke the tension 
 and I found that I could use my lips. 
 
 " Joan, Harry," I called and the words came 
 in a voice I did not recognize. " I 'm here, I 'm 
 close to you. Don't be frightened." 
 
 A long smothered sob was my answer. Then 
 Joan's voice piped : " Miss Belmont, what was 
 that? " and Harry's wail broke out: " I want to 
 go to you. I 'm — scared ! " 
 
 " I 'm here, dear, close against the wall in the 
 cerner by the door." I tried to comfort the 
 terrified child, though I had all I could do to 
 strengthen my lips enough to form the words. 
 " See, we 're almost together ; snuggle against the 
 wall on that side. It 's almost as if my arm was 
 around you, is n't it? " 
 
 " N-no ! " came Harry's honest though muffled 
 roar, but his sister's embrace and the sound of 
 my voice had taken the edge of panic from him. 
 In between my shouted assurances my thoughts 
 were racing madly hither and thither. The still- 
 ness below ached like a great void. Where were 
 Miss Haldayne and her sister? Where was 
 Hoang? Who had locked us in? Were we there 
 that we might not interfere or were we prisoners 
 to be attended to later? That was a pistol shot 
 
88 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 which had awakened me, but that howl — for it 
 had been a howl, that was no spontaneous scream 
 but an eerie wail, one whose cadence was one of 
 intent — what did that mean? 
 
 World-old fear, foolish fear of the supernat- 
 ural, flashed back from dead ages to chill me. 
 Morbid readings of my college days leaped to life 
 further to torment my quaking brain. Uncon- 
 sciously Joan touched the key of understanding. 
 
 " Miss Belmont," — the enforced calm of the 
 little girl's voice told of the strong self-control 
 inherited from her mother's side of the family — 
 " that sounded something like Hoang, did n't 
 it?" 
 
 The words were a revelation. With dizzying 
 swiftness my mind flashed back to some literary 
 data I had at one time looked up. Once again I 
 was back in the high-arched ivy-covered univer- 
 sity library. Through the amber-glassed case- 
 ment windows the light slanted mildly over quiet 
 figures bowed over the long tables below. There 
 had been a book, fat and brown-covered; a book 
 of curious customs, curiously worded: 
 
 . . . And when the Spirit doth at length leave the Body, 
 then do all present beat their breasts and burst forth into 
 lamentation, loud and exceedingly shrill. A most unpleas- 
 ant and doleful sound which greatly distresseth the ear. 
 This the Chinese call The Death Howl . . . 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 89 
 
 The thought left me dumb. Not until Joan's 
 quaver insisted, "Didn't it, Miss Belmont? 
 Did n't it sound like Hoang? " was I able to reply 
 in a shaky voice : " I don't know, Joan. It was 
 too far away." 
 
 Still the ominous silence continued, down- 
 stairs. I sternly forbade my mind to dwell on 
 what that howl could have meant, lest the 
 thought send me into blind panic. The wrench- 
 ing and shaking of the knob of my door failed to 
 loosen the key on the other side. I was not 
 strong enough to break it open; nor had I any 
 weapon with which to break one of the stout oak 
 panels through. I could picture the children 
 hunched, shivering in their little night-gowns, 
 against the wall ; and, calling to Joan, I told her 
 to tuck Harry into his cot and then to crawl into 
 her own. Standing chilled in the dark was not 
 going to help matters any. 
 
 I followed my own advice when I knew that 
 they had obeyed, pulling the warm bed- 
 clothes around my shivering body but sitting bolt 
 upright and wide-eyed in the dark. Not a sound 
 filtered to my strained ears. That proved con- 
 clusively that Miss Haldayne had knowledge of 
 the strange happenings of this night. If she 
 had been in her room I should have heard her by 
 now. Miss Drusilla too — what share did she 
 
 
90 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 have in this mystery? She disliked Hoang as 
 greatly as she disliked her own sister; surely 
 she could not be in league with them. Yet, 
 directly across the hall from me as her room was, 
 I should surely have heard her voice as easily 
 as the children's. Even assuming that she too 
 was locked in her room, it seemed hardly likely 
 that she would have remained silent unless she 
 had had forewarning of this disturbance. Were 
 both the sisters downstairs at the time of that 
 shot, and — a shiver shook me down to the soles 
 of my bare feet — for . whom was the death- 
 howl? 
 
 Minute after minute ticked away by my little 
 alarm-clock on the dressing-table, while my 
 thoughts swam in wild confusion. Evidently the 
 warmth of bed had overcome the children's 
 terror, for their silence told of sleep. No sound 
 from the black cavern of downstairs; no sound 
 from the long hall outside my door. Smothering 
 darkness pressed against the wire mesh of the 
 windows as my eyes sought their direction ; then 
 I found myself uttering an exclamation of as- 
 tonishment, while my feet were reaching for the 
 floor. 
 
 A pin-prick of light had appeared out there on 
 the dunes, a light closely followed by another. I 
 pressed my face against the cold, wet screen, re- 
 gardless of the damp air blowing about my thinly 
 
 
THE HOWL IN THE NIGHT 91 
 
 clad body. The lights bobbed unsteadily, now 
 appearing to go out in the blackness, now sud- 
 denly reappearing; up and down, up and down, 
 always that same distance apart — lanterns car- 
 ried by two people climbing over the mounds and 
 swales of sand. 
 
 I watched for nearly an hour, huddled in the 
 quilt I had taken from the bed, until they finally 
 winked out. Moment after moment passed and 
 they did not prick out again. The chill finally 
 drove me to my bed. 
 
 After the cold and the strain, the warmth of 
 the covers acted as a narcotic. I was puzzled 
 suddenly to find myself with eyes wide-staring 
 at the daylight which filled the room. Through 
 the squares of window showed dense fog instead 
 of sunshine; it was plainly past my usual hour 
 for waking. Memory swooped down on me with 
 a shiver. 
 
 I swung to the floor and pattered across the 
 room to the door. The knob turned easily in my 
 hand ; while I slept the door had been softly un- 
 locked. 
 
 More shaken by that than if I had remained 
 a prisoner, I hastily pulled my clothes on with 
 shaking hands. A quick glance into the chil- 
 dren's room — their door, too, was open this 
 morning — showed them sleeping ; Joan uneasily, 
 because of the rag knobs. I did not wake them, 
 
92 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 but closed the door softly and turned with a 
 wildly beating heart down the hall. What was 
 I to find at the foot of those stairs? Which one 
 of our little household would be missing? 
 
CHAPTEK VII 
 
 ANN MAKES A DECISION 
 
 THE inverse ratio on any strong emotion 
 leaves us bewildered and strangely void of 
 feeling. I do not know what I had expected 
 when I descended the stairs in dread, but cer- 
 tainly it was not to find Miss Haldayne firmly 
 entrenched behind the coffee urn in her usual 
 place ; to see Hoang, immaculate and irreproach- 
 able as ever in fresh white linen, reaching over 
 to deposit a smoking stack of hot cakes before 
 her, while Miss Drusilla, opposite, placidly 
 emptied the cream-jug into her cup of steaming 
 coffee. 
 
 The inverse ratio I have mentioned forbade me 
 even to feel relief for the moment, so great was 
 my amazement. I know that I stood motionless 
 there in the red-curtained doorway, my mouth 
 sagging ludicrously, too utterly astonished to ad- 
 vance to the chair which Hoang, who had first 
 sighted me, had drawn back politely. It was 
 only Miss Haldayne, looking up in frank impa- 
 
 93 
 
94 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 tience at my inactivity, that galvanized me into 
 life and advanced me stiffly to my place. 
 
 " Oatmeal, Ann? " Miss Haldayne matter-of- 
 f actly poised the spoon over an empty mush-bowl. 
 
 u Pl-please," I stammered, wondering which 
 was the nightmare, the weird happenings of last 
 night or the placid commonplaces of this morn- 
 ing. Miss Haldayne- seemed as usual, when I 
 studied her severe profile while she served me. 
 A little grimmer, perhaps, but certainly not like 
 one who had gone through a soul-racking experi- 
 ence in a lonely house at midnight. Miss Dru- 
 silla was not in such perfect poise. She was far 
 less loquacious than usual. After a fluttery 
 " good morning " her eyes again dropped to her 
 coffee-cup, where she was piling sugar after her 
 usual habit. Her hand was trembling, I noticed, 
 and she was more like a timid white rabbit 
 than ever. But this might signify nothing. I 
 had seen her look so when Miss Haldayne, net- 
 tled beyond endurance by her sister's gnat stings, 
 had paused to take an extra determined verbal 
 slap at her tormentor. There might have been a 
 passage of words between the sisters just before 
 I entered. That would account for the younger's 
 agitation and for the elder's grimness. 
 
 My untasted mush before me, I waited until 
 Hoang's white back had vanished behind the 
 swing-door before I opened my lips to speak, 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 95 
 
 My words died a-borriin' as my Scotch ancestors 
 would have put it. Miss Haldayne turned to me 
 with a crease of annoyance between her black 
 brows. 
 
 " Where 's Joan and Harry? Why can't they 
 get here in time for their breakfast? " 
 
 The unexpectedness of this, and its injustice, 
 took my breath away and struck a note of anger 
 when I did speak. 
 
 " They 're asleep — worn out, the poor little 
 youngsters, after last night's terrible experi- 
 ence ! " 
 
 I was not facing her, but I seemed to feel Miss 
 Drusilla's eyes flutter to my indignant profile 
 and rest there in fright. Miss Haldayne's gaze 
 never wavered, but I sensed that her fingers 
 tightened about the handle of her fork. 
 
 " Meaning what, Ann? " 
 
 The sublime audacity of it almost floored me. 
 " Meaning that we were all awakened by the 
 sound of a shot, followed by a horrible and un- 
 earthly howl — in Hoang's voice, Miss Hal- 
 dayne ! That I jumped from my bed and ran to 
 the door — " 
 
 Eliza Haldayne interrupted me, appar- 
 ently with unusual haste : " Surely you are n't 
 going to develop nerves because poor Hoang had 
 a nightmare, Ann ! It 's hardly the right exam- 
 ple for the children. Joan 's so nervous now 
 
96 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 she ? s almost jumping out'of her skin. I hoped 
 your common sense would curb that instead of 
 encouraging her foolishness." 
 
 The supreme impertinence of it choked me. 
 Struggling to remain calm, I was beginning, 
 " Miss Haldayne, you surely don't mean to tell 
 me — " when I interrupted myself. The noise- 
 less Hoang pitter-patted into the room with my 
 portion of hot cakes. Before he left Miss Hal- 
 dayne folded her napkin and rose, as though seiz- 
 ing the opportunity to escape without explana- 
 tions. Impetuously I thrust my chair back and 
 followed, regardless of Miss Drusilla's half- 
 formed — and indeed half-heard — exclamation 
 of alarm. In the hall, where the shadows ren- 
 dered her expression utterly unreadable, I 
 caught up with my employer. 
 
 " Miss Haldayne," I burst out, anger burning 
 away the usual restraint I felt with this strange 
 woman, " there 's no use in our playing at cross- 
 purposes like this. Something happened in this 
 house last night, something — dreadful. I was 
 awakened by a shot and a few seconds later came 
 a horrible howl — a Chinese death-howl, Miss 
 Haldayne. I had that explained to me once. I 
 ran to my door. It was locked — from the out- 
 side. Miss Haldayne — and so was the children's 
 door." 
 
 " Nonsense, Ann ! What you call a shot was a 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 97 
 
 shutter blown back against the wall by the wind. 
 I found it so this morning when I came down. I 
 told Hoang to put a new catch on it to-day. And 
 as for all this nonsense about a death-howl — 
 whatever in the world that is — that 's out-and- 
 out ridiculous, Ann, and you know it! Hoang 
 had a nightmare and yelled just like a lot of 
 other human beings yell when they 're scared. 
 For Heaven's sake, you 're not going to get hys- 
 terical because a servant gets the nightmare! 
 You '11 be seeing ghosts next." 
 
 " It was no ghost that locked my door from the 
 other side after I had locked myself in and left 
 the key in the lock," I reminded her, my quiet 
 tone giving little hint of the hot anger raging 
 within. 
 
 " You 've confessed yourself that it 's non- 
 sense," she returned. " How could any one get 
 another key in the lock if you left your own 
 there? " 
 
 " The key fits very loosely. It could easily be 
 poked out from the other side by a piece of wire 
 or even by another key, for that matter. It had 
 fallen on the floor, I had to grope for it. 1 
 could n't get it back into the lock because the 
 second key was still in snugly from the opposite 
 side." 
 
 " You did n't try right. You were probably 
 half -asleep and did n't even turn it. Your door 
 
98 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 may be sticking again." The impatience fairly 
 rang through Eliza Haldayne's voice. 
 
 But I refused to be browbeaten. Irish temper 
 overcame Scotch caution. " I suppose the chil- 
 dren imagined that their door was locked, too, 
 when they were frightened and wanted to get out 
 of their room and run to me?" I inquired sarcas- 
 tically. 
 
 She took this gravely. " No, their door was 
 locked. I locked it myself just before I went to 
 bed. Harry's got a habit of walking in his 
 sleep. He caught a bad cold last winter doing 
 that and I did n't want to take any chances with 
 him. Don't go 'round looking for trouble, Ann, 
 and don't let your imagination run away with 
 you." 
 
 This flared my resentment to a white-hot flame. 
 My slight body seemed to grow and expand with 
 the volume of my indignation until it equaled in 
 stature the big woman before me. 
 
 " My imagination, as you call it, Miss Hal- 
 dayne, has too much to feed on here. I 'm afraid 
 I '11 have to take it from Dune House before it 
 assumes greater proportions. Hoang might 
 have another nightmare." 
 
 My words spattered at her like so much shot. 
 I could not read her expression in the gloom. 
 There was no relaxation of that upright figure, 
 but I somehow gained the impression of bleak 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 99 
 
 loneliness, like a gaunt rock continually gnawed 
 and lashed by the waves which were wasting it 
 away. Then her voice came and it was a sur- 
 prisingly tender, sadly gentle voice, such as I had 
 not believed the blunt woman capable of using. 
 
 " I '11 be sorry to see you go, Ann, but — I 
 can't blame you." Then she had turned, briskly 
 as always, and whisked herself upstairs to the 
 disarranged bedrooms. 
 
 I went slowly up to my own and sat down on 
 the edge of my unmade bed. The first sharp edge 
 of my anger had dulled. In my mind I reviewed 
 the situation. As usual, second thoughts re- 
 versed the first. I found, with an element of sur- 
 prise, that it would be rather a wrench to leave 
 Dune House. Despite the mystery and the unex- 
 plained and nerve-racking threat hanging over 
 the place I had been rather contented here. The 
 quiet, the plain wholesome food, the vigorous salt 
 air — all this had changed the pale girl who had 
 come from the city some months before. The re- 
 flection in the mirror opposite was almost that of 
 a stranger: smooth tanned cheeks, clear eyes, 
 hair shining with health — for this I had to 
 thank Dune House. I felt a very real affection, 
 too, for Joan and Harry ; even, strangely enough, 
 for the eccentric woman who had engaged me. 
 Should I go and leave the trusting youngsters to 
 the menace which overhung the place? leave them 
 
100 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 to the mercy of their too-vivid imaginations? rob 
 them of the only companionship their little 
 hearts had ever known? To other ears my story 
 would sound ridiculous and would entangle me 
 in a net of insinuations which I could not prove. 
 I could substantiate nothing. I should be looked 
 upon as a more-or-less harmless idiot if I at- 
 tempted to have the children put under other 
 control. 
 
 At this point a timid knock sounded on the 
 door and Joan's dark head came around it. Her 
 seal-brown eyes were pathetically large in the 
 pale face this morning. Harry was clinging to 
 her, a round-eyed, frightened Harry, distress- 
 ingly delicate for his six years. At the sight of 
 me their faces lit up, and, suddenly emboldened, 
 they raced to my arms. 
 
 "Miss Belmont, what was it last night? 
 Harry says maybe we dreamed it, but we both 
 could n't dream the same thing, could we? " 
 
 In the brief moment before I replied my deci- 
 sion was made. Leave Dune House while it held 
 these two pale babies in its grim clutch! Flee 
 from an unknown fear and toss two small hearts 
 behind me into a chasm of loneliness and terror? 
 Ann Belmont could never be such a self-centered 
 wretch !■ 
 
 Both little forms hugged tightly to me, I 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 101 
 
 reached out easily for Miss Haldayne's ready- 
 made explanation, 
 
 " It was Hoang, chickens ; he had a nightmare. 
 And that loud noise that woke us all up, that 
 was a shutter banging against the wall." 
 
 But inwardly I was promising myself fiercely 
 that two things I would do and at once. I would 
 watch Hoang when he thought himself unob- 
 served, playing detective on my own hook until 
 I could convince Miss Haldayne of his guilt ; and 
 I would find out what lay behind the door of that 
 secret room. 
 
 In the next few days when things had appar- 
 ently settled to an unbroken routine of study, 
 play and sleep, I noticed two things which 
 caused my now over-alert brain to note them 
 suspiciously down. 
 
 Hoang always wore white now — white, the 
 badge of Chinese mourning ! — and as he served 
 us at meal times, I noticed beneath the loose 
 sleeve of his linen blouse a tightly wound band- 
 age, a bandage which appeared to continue up to 
 the elbow as though his arm had been badly 
 wounded. Later, while helping Miss Drusilla 
 sort stockings in a heap for mending, I asked 
 casually : " What has happened to Hoang' s arm? 
 I see he 's had it bandaged for the last two days." 
 
 My eyes were on the stockings in my lap, but I 
 
102 'Wil^D AL0N Q THE WASTE 
 
 felt Miss Drusilla's gaze flutter to my face as it 
 had on the morning following the death-howl. 
 There was a tense silence in the little sitting- 
 room for a minute, broken only by the ticking 
 of the onyx clock on the mantelpiece. I sud- 
 denly lifted my eyes. 
 
 A curious indecision was battling in Miss Dru- 
 silla's spongy face. For the first time I saw a 
 resemblance between the sisters. A devil of 
 spite, and fear too, gleamed from her pale-blue 
 eyes, her lips fairly twitched with the ghosts of 
 words seeking to materialize; then a flutter 
 passed over the fat white face, the air expelled 
 from her lungs in a regretful little wheeze, her 
 eyes plunged by mine to the opened door to the 
 hall. Miss Haldayne was passing briskly along 
 it, her arms full of bedclothes to be aired on the 
 sunny side veranda. In a moment she had 
 flashed by the shaded little room, nor did she 
 turn her head, but her passing was sufficient to 
 prevent Miss Drusilla's confidence. The domi- 
 nant will had completely overcast the weaker, as 
 a stern sun might pull a refractory planet back 
 to its allotted orbit. 
 
 Miss Drusilla became a fluttery white rabbit 
 again, sorting stockings. 
 
 " Hoang's arm ? Oh, yes. He burned himself 
 on the wash-boiler the other morning. The 
 kitchen 's no place for a man, whether he 's a 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 103 
 
 white man or a heathen. A good woman cook, 
 that's what Eliza ought to get, but, there — I 
 don't suppose you could get a woman to stay 
 here. How you 've stayed so long is a mystery 
 to me, Ann, — this gloomy old place. When I 
 was a girl — always something lively, but then, 
 if I do say it, I was a mighty pretty girl; of 
 course that is n't what / think, but hundreds of 
 young men have said so. There was one — a 
 wonderful young man he was, and quite a catch, 
 and he said — " and so, ad infinitum. 
 
 I checked it up on my mental records: so, 
 Hoang's arm had been hurt the other night and 
 Miss Drusilla knew how, but was afraid to say. 
 This cleared up my mystery not a whit, but it 
 served to increase my dislike for and distrust of 
 the Chinaman. 
 
 I had noticed, too, since that nerve-racking 
 night, a new desperation in Miss Haldayne's 
 eyes. Her manner was as preoccupied, her 
 movements as vigorous and brisk, but her eyes 
 held a strained hopelessness, like one fighting 
 alone, with his back to the wall. 
 
 Then one morning I woke to find that she had 
 departed to the nearest town for supplies, leav- 
 ing early, while we still slept. It was Hoang 
 who gave this information as Miss Drusilla 
 seated herself at the breakfast-table and I loosed 
 myself from the morning embraces of Joan and 
 
104 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Harry. He came into the room silently in his 
 felt slippers and placed the steaming bowl of 
 oatmeal before Miss Drusilla, with the comment : 
 "Missy Haldayne, she go town to get things. 
 She back this afternoon. You want chocolate or 
 milk for chil'en? " 
 
 I could see that Miss Drusilla was indignant 
 under her fluttery attempt at calm. Twice be- 
 fore had Miss Haldayne made such a trip since 
 I had come to Dune House, but each time she had 
 told us in advance. Now the uncomfortable 
 thought occurred to me that it would be a simple 
 matter for something to have happened to her 
 while our suspicions were blandly parried by the 
 laconic Chinaman. 
 
 That the same fear had occurred to Miss Dru- 
 silla was apparent when she next spoke. Hoang 
 left the room and her faded blue eyes followed 
 his enigmatical white back spitefully. Her tone 
 was fretful. 
 
 " That ? s a funny thing for Eliza to do ! Any- 
 thing might happen to her and we 'd be none the 
 wiser. The Lord knows what might take place 
 in this house, too, while she ? s away ! " 
 
 Joan's sharp little ears pricked up at this. 
 "W T hat things, Aunt Drusilla?" she inquired 
 with a freedom she lacked when her austere 
 guardian was present. " What could happen to 
 us?" 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 105 
 
 I chimed in quickly, striking at the alert fear 
 which reared its head through the little girPs 
 treble. "Your aunt was speaking figuratively, 
 dear. Lots of times we say things that sound 
 stronger than we mean them. Why, what could 
 happen here ! " This last was in a tone which I 
 meant for scornful ridicule, but Joan interpreted 
 it as a serious question. 
 
 " There 's the — " She suddenly stopped and 
 smothered her words with a mouthful of mush. 
 
 My mind finished the forbidden sentence for 
 her. There was the secret room, indeed; there 
 was the menace which mystery always brings. 
 All morning that thought was with me, rustling 
 the leaves of my imagination; sliding its ugly 
 head over the tops of the school-books as I heard 
 the children's lessons; reminding me of the sec- 
 ond part of that resolve I had made. This was a 
 heaven-sent opportunity to explore the secret 
 room ; to discover or allay my fears. Miss Hal- 
 dayne never returned from these expeditions un- 
 til late in.the afternoon. Once the children were 
 set to playing after luncheon I should be free to 
 rummage the house unmolested for three hours 
 at least. 
 
 I formed my plans on the morning walk. The 
 high fog had not lifted to-day; the sea and the 
 sky were smoky pearl, like the curved white 
 hollow of an oyster-shell. Even above high- 
 
106 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 water mark the sand clung damply to our shoes. 
 The tide was low, the dismal sloping beach 
 strewn with brown kelp, sinuous and shiny, some 
 of it large as a man's wrist and disgustingly 
 snake-like. The fog clung tenaciously to the 
 house, looming wraith-like, like a sulky ghost 
 squatting on the sand, waiting for the next high 
 tide to carry it off to sea. 
 
 My eyes fell on the window of the secret room 
 at the right-hand corner, tight-shuttered and for- 
 bidden. A ladder placed against the outside of 
 the house and, by standing on tiptoe, one would 
 be on a level with a slat missing in the shutter. 
 Common sense railed at quaking imagination. 
 At least one mystery would be removed ; I might 
 obtain some clue which would help to explain the 
 unknown fear hanging over the house. 
 
 There was a step-ladder in the unused back 
 parlor, I remembered. Only the day before I 
 had seen Miss Haldayne, skirts capably looped 
 up over a striped flannel petticoat, standing on 
 its top rungs, cleaning the great gilt picture- 
 frames with ammonia and water. 
 
 I shortened the children's lessons when I heard 
 Miss Drusilla plodding upstairs for her after- 
 noon nap; and turned them out to play on the 
 upper veranda overlooking the ocean. Then, 
 silent save for a wildly thumping heart, I flew 
 down the shadowy stairs to the back parlor. 
 
ANN MAKES A DECISION 107 
 
 The ladder was still there, folded against the 
 wall in a dark corner. Luckily it was not too 
 long for me to manage by myself. Once the end 
 ran into an angle of the wall and I stopped fear- 
 fully to listen. Hoang I could hear shuffling 
 about in the kitchen at the end of the corridor. 
 The children's happy voices floated faintly down 
 through the opened French window. 
 
 I continued as silently as I could and got the 
 cumbersome thing down the steps without too 
 much scraping, and around to the corner of the 
 house. 
 
 More than the fog had penetrated my blood 
 by now and was setting my teeth a-chatter. The 
 ladder's top scraped against the wooden window- 
 sill as I raised it, for all my painstaking efforts. 
 It caused me to hesitate, one foot on the lower 
 rung; half -fearfully expecting to see Joan's " ter- 
 rible face" pressed fiercely against the missing 
 leaf of the shutter to see what was invading its 
 sanctum. Then, gripping my courage with set 
 teeth, I started to mount. 
 
 I suppose my outward ears had heard the 
 squeaking before, but my preoccupation had at- 
 tached no significance to the sound. Now I be- 
 came aware of it with a gasp that caused my 
 heart to leap painfully and left me clinging flatly, 
 midway up the ladder, like a limpet on a rock. 
 
 Before the house a small delivery truck, — 
 
108 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 hired, I guessed, in the nearest little town, — had 
 come to a jolting stop. Its sunburned and 
 frankly curious driver was helping a small Fili- 
 pino to lower its heavy load to the ground. 
 Rather startlingly this proved to be a swathed 
 figure in a large wheeled chair — a man's figure, 
 one guessed, from the firmly molded features of 
 the pale face visible beneath disfiguring smoked 
 glasses. 
 
 Two shabby suit-cases were placed on the 
 ground as well, but at the driver's offer to wheel 
 the chair up the sandy, unkept path to the house, 
 the Filipino emphatically shook his head. Not 
 until the jerky little truck had started to rattle 
 its homeward way across the dunes did he move, 
 then it was to take his place behind the chair and 
 wheel it slowly along, a ludicrously small Sisy- 
 phus whose stone threatened to roll back and an- 
 nihilate him each minute. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PARALYTIC MAN 
 
 FOR a moment sheer amazement kept me, a 
 scared little Prometheus guiltily suspended 
 between heaven and earth. The somber proces- 
 sion advanced to the shallow wooden steps, the 
 rhythmic squeak of the chair wheels, ever grow- 
 ing louder, falling on the ear with an indescrib- 
 ably mournful effect. As it halted I heard the 
 front door w T heeze back rheumatically on its 
 hinges, saw Miss Brasilia's palpitating bulk fill 
 the entrance, caught a disquieting glimpse of 
 Hoang's white figure in the gloom of the hall 
 beyond. 
 
 What a fastastic group we should have ap- 
 peared could we have been transformed to can- 
 vas at that moment! — a weird puzzle-picture 
 whose meaning was somewhere hidden in the in- 
 congruous grouping. The wheeled chair with its 
 sad burden and dusky guardian, the frightened, 
 flabby woman in the gaping doorway, the nar- 
 row-eyed, inscrutable Chinese in the ghostly 
 gloom behind her, the white-faced girl clinging 
 
 109 
 
110 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 limpet-fashion to her ladder; over it all the 
 smoky pearl arch of the sky and the mournful 
 cadence of the sea flinging itself incessantly on 
 wet sands. 
 
 The tableau was broken when the Filipino 
 said something intelligible only to the man he 
 wheeled. The figure in the chair did not stir 
 other than to lift an arm and drop it wearily 
 again. 
 
 " This is Dune House? " His tone was low 
 and hollow, a voice which seemed by rights to 
 belong to a man much older than he appeared 
 beneath the disguising glasses. " I am looking 
 for my aunts, the Misses Haldayne." The white 
 face turned blindly in the direction he addressed. 
 
 I heard a little gasp from Miss Drusilla, audi- 
 ble even at that distance and the face of Hoang 
 appeared to my oblique vision to grow sharper. 
 As if he too had heard the telltale sound, the 
 man in the chair added simply, " I am George 
 Rogers." 
 
 Miss Drusilla's perplexity was truly pitiful 
 to see. She looked alternately from the man in 
 the chair to the two battered suit-cases. Her 
 face screwed up with indecision and anxiety, 
 like that of an infant about to burst into tears. 
 "George Rogers! I — I — Oh, I don't know 
 what to do ! " 
 
 " You received my telegram? " came the too- 
 
THE PAEALYTIC MAN 111 
 
 old voice from the chair, a voice which sounded 
 as though all the strength and youth had been 
 sapped from it. 
 
 " No! " was forced from Miss Drusilla's lungs. 
 " George Eogers ! Whatever will Eliza say ! " 
 
 She had come out on the porch now, too much 
 agitated to notice my guilty figure, afraid to 
 move from its undignified perch. She stood on 
 the top step, a frail figure somehow, despite the 
 bulk of flesh, her pudgy hands pressed tightly to- 
 gether as though drawing comfort from the im- 
 pact. "What has happened! Whatever has 
 happened ! Why, you were never like this ! " 
 
 A laugh, dry as a consumptive's cough, 
 hacked from the man. " A trifling memento of 
 the war, Aunt Drusilla — you are Aunt Drusilla, 
 aren't you? So you didn't get my telegram; 
 your voice sounds shocked. To state it baldly, I 
 have wished myself upon you and Aunjt Eliza, 
 for the time being at least, until other arrange- 
 ments can be made. I 've come here to stay be- 
 cause — well, because there isn't another place 
 for me in all of this hospitable world." 
 
 The shock of this fetched me half-tumbling to 
 the ground, but Miss Drusilla neither saw nor 
 cared what my occupation had been. If her 
 voice had been shocked before, it was stricken 
 now. 
 
 "To stay! Oh, what shall I do! If only 
 
112 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Eliza were here ! " Then belated politeness came 
 limping to her aid. " Of course I 'm glad to see 
 you, George, I 'm sure. We 'd be delighted to 
 have you stay here, but, really, we have n't very 
 much room " — this in the face of those empty 
 bedrooms upstairs ! " It rests entirely with 
 Eliza. You — you '11 come into the house? " she 
 finished lamely. 
 
 The man in the chair laughed dryly again. 
 " That 's what I traveled over three thousand 
 miles to do, Aunt Drusilla. Is there some one 
 who can help Rafael with this confounded 
 chair? " 
 
 Silently Hoang came forward and grasped 
 the bottom of the chair. As he did so his eyes 
 fell on me, took in the telltale ladder leaning 
 under the corner window, and the guilty clasp 
 of my hand on its rung. It was only a moment 
 that the angry dislike glittered at me from be- 
 tween the slanting lids, then the eyes were dis- 
 creetly lowered and he backed slowly up the steps 
 with his burden. 
 
 I waited until I saw the stranger wheeled into 
 the house, until Hoang had carried his baggage 
 inside and shut the front door, then I hastily 
 folded the ladder and as noiselessly as possible I 
 carried it on to the porch, my appetite for ex- 
 ploration entirely dissipated, my only desire to 
 avoid further discovery. 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 113 
 
 As I cautiously introduced my head into the 
 dark hall to see if the coast was clear, I saw that 
 the door of the little sitting-room was closed. 
 From behind it came the indistinct murmur of 
 voices; the dry taut tone of the stranger, Miss 
 Drusilla's panic-stricken wheeze. Nor was this 
 all: a white-clad figure loomed indistinct and 
 ghost-like in the gloom, a figure with head bent 
 close to the crack of the door, that no muffled 
 word might escape the listening ears — the figure 
 of Hoang. 
 
 He wheeled, startled at the fall of my foot- 
 steps; his slant eyes wider than I had ever seen 
 them, the white linen coat over his chest rising 
 and falling rapidly. It was the first time I had 
 ever had him at a disadvantage and I stared 
 meaningly to cover the awkwardness of my own 
 position. 
 
 Hoang recovered with a visible effort. Again 
 the lids dropped obsequiously ; his voice inquired 
 meekly, " Missy Belmont, you want me carry 
 ladder in?" 
 
 Even through my anger I had to applaud, 
 however reluctantly, his astuteness. He had ef- 
 fectually blocked any reproof by this apparently 
 innocent reference to my own guilt. I grew sud- 
 denly reckless. What was the value of any at- 
 tempt at concealment? 
 
 " Yes," I flung over my shoulder in what I 
 
114 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 hoped was a cool tone. " Take it to the back 
 parlor." 
 
 It was a condition and an acceptance. I felt 
 my face flaming as I continued on up the stairs, 
 that Fate had thus forced me into a truce, how- 
 ever brief, with the obnoxious Chinaman. 
 
 I found Joan and Harry, their little stomachs 
 doubled over the banister, trying to hear what 
 was going on downstairs. Joan looked up at me 
 through the meshes of her dark hair, her face 
 scarlet from her inverted exercises. 
 
 " Is it Cousin George, Miss Belmont? Aunt 
 Drusilla called him George Rogers, did n't she? " 
 
 " What 's a-matter with his legs? " demanded 
 Harry, as I reversed the stout little boots which 
 had been pointing ceilingward rather alarm- 
 ingly. " Joan said he never usta be like that." 
 
 In the school-room, where I felt reasonably 
 sure that Hoang's listening ears could not hear, I 
 demanded, " Who is Cousin George, Joan? " 
 
 " I saw him once when Mama was alive," the 
 little girl answered in roundabout childish fash- 
 ion. " He came to the house. Harry was only a 
 little tiny thing; he don't remember him at all." 
 
 Ignoring my murmured " Does n't, Joan," she 
 went on. 
 
 " He brought me a doll in a pink dress, but the 
 elastic came out of its legs after a while. He was 
 awful nice. He could walk then and he did n't 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 115 
 
 have those black things over his eyes. Mama 
 cried when he went away — " 
 
 " But who is he? " I reiterated patiently. u Is 
 he a real cousin? " 
 
 " I guess so," the little girl replied. " I heard 
 Mama and Papa talk after he 'd gone. His real 
 name's George Rogers Haldayne; Mama and 
 Papa called him George Rogers all the time, but 
 I called him Cousin George. I 've told Harry 
 about him before. He went way off some place ; 
 over the sea, it was, far away. They said where, 
 but I can't remember. That was the only time 
 I ever saw him and he made a cunning little 
 white rabbit with his napkin at dinner for me. 
 I was sorry when he went away. Mama and 
 Papa died after that and we came here to live 
 with Aunt Eliza and Aunt Drusilla." 
 
 " What 's a-matter with his legs? " Harry was 
 still demanding vociferously between pauses. 
 
 u He 's been to the war," I explained, my mind 
 busy wondering what changes this new addition 
 might make in our queer household. 
 
 In the midst of their volley of questions called 
 forth by this, and which I was doing my best to 
 answer, I suddenly broke off and hurried to the 
 window. 
 
 The ancient old machine stood on the sandy 
 path below, still quivering with the speed of its 
 return trip through the dunes. Miss Haldayne, 
 
116 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 her face an iron mask, was climbing hastily over 
 the side of the car, a full three hours before she 
 had been expected. Just before she disappeared 
 beneath the out jutting floor of the upper veranda 
 I caught a glimpse of something yellow in her 
 hand — the belated telegram to which the stran- 
 ger had referred. 
 
 Kegardless of the questionable example I was 
 setting the children, I opened the school-room 
 door a trifle and stood listening. I heard the 
 front door open and close, I heard — or thought 
 I did, at least — the sibilant syllables of Hoang's 
 repressed tones. There was the sudden murmur 
 of three voices, which was as suddenly shut off 
 as the door of the little sitting-room closed be- 
 hind Miss Haldayne. 
 
 Looking back upon it now, it seems rather as- 
 tonishing how little difference the advent of 
 George Rogers Haldayne made in the daily life 
 of Dune House. A man who is both blind and 
 paralytic naturally cannot take an active part in 
 the affairs of a household. Yet there was at- 
 tendant none of that turmoil which usually ac- 
 companies the care of an invalid. After his 
 startling introduction to us it was as though he 
 did not exist. He was assigned a bedroom at the 
 end of the hall, the end in which was the mys- 
 terious staircase. From Miss Haldayne's scant 
 remarks on the subject, and Miss Drusilla's 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 117 
 
 rambling ones, I gained the impression that he 
 was sensitive about his affliction; that he pre- 
 ferred taking his meals in his own room, attended 
 only by the Filipino servant, who appeared de- 
 voted to him, slipping about the house as silently 
 as a shadow and that only when it was absolutely 
 necessary. George Rogers Haldayne was a dead- 
 alive man, craving only the boon of being left 
 alone, to forget and be forgotten by the world 
 which had maimed him. 
 
 From Miss Drusilla I learned one day, while 
 we polished the silverware together, that his 
 pension was all he had left in the world and upon 
 the collapse of his ambitions and dreams he had 
 turned to the only relatives he possessed. 
 
 Even flabby Miss Drusilla seemed overcome by 
 genuine feeling as she unreeled his sad history. 
 Her polishing-cloth poised over an old-fashioned 
 pointed spoon which had surely crossed the con- 
 tinent in a prairie schooner or braved the bliz- 
 zards of the Horn, her faded eyes holding a far- 
 off look, she spoke: 
 
 " No one would ever have thought of such an 
 end for George Rogers — we always called him 
 that, an old New England custom, I guess. 
 There ? s always been a George Rogers in the fam- 
 ily, after George Rogers Clark, who was a friend 
 of the Revolutionary Haldayne. This George 
 Rogers's father was George Rogers before him — 
 
118 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 George Rogers, our elder brother. Then comes 
 Eliza, then me; then, fifteen years younger than 
 me, was Florence, Joan and Harry's mother. 
 Florence was the youngest of the family. He 
 stayed with us one summer when he was just a 
 boy, and he took a great fancy to Florence, 
 though of course she was older than he was. We 
 only saw him that once, for he went to Manila 
 with some of his mother's family right after. 
 That was just after his father died. He was in 
 this country once after that. Eliza and I did n't 
 see him, but he went to see Florence. Joan was 
 a little thing then and Harry was just a baby. 
 He was over here on business and he went right 
 back again. He says he was doing right well in 
 Manila when the war broke out. He'd served 
 under Pershing in the islands, so when Pershing 
 was made commander-in-chief he enlisted and 
 went to France — in the aviation. The Ger- 
 mans crippled his machine one day; luckily he 
 was over his own lines, so he was n't taken pris- 
 oner, but the fall paralyzed his legs and the shock 
 affected the optic nerve. He can only see the 
 slightest haze, that 's why he wears the glasses, 
 so 's not to strain his eyes by daylight." 
 
 " Oh, the poor fellow ! " was wrung out of me. 
 
 Miss Drusilla continued with the morbid satis- 
 faction some women take in recounting misfor* 
 tune, her flabby face plastered in lines of direst 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 119 
 
 woe, her head nodding solemnly at me over the 
 jumble of silverware on the red table-cloth be- 
 tween us : " He has no other people besides us ; 
 that ? s how he happened to come here. Got our 
 address from our lawyer in San Francisco. 
 Eliza never got the telegram until too late, or 
 she ? d 'f put him off somehow, but when he came 
 and she saw him helpless like a baby she had no 
 other choice. Eliza 's strong on doing her duty." 
 
 This last caused me to lift my head sharply. 
 What might have been a compliment was uttered 
 as a sneer and under it smoldered some long- 
 buried but secretly nourished resentment. 
 
 This pitiful story of his, added to his helpless- 
 ness, quickened my sympathy for the invalid. 
 The afternoon following my conversation with 
 Miss Drusilla I paused by the opened French 
 window upstairs and looked out on the ocean- 
 side veranda. 
 
 It was the children's play-time. They had 
 brought their toys, Joan lugging June, the be- 
 loved doll as large as herself, and had ensconced 
 themselves in a sunny angle of the porch. Here, 
 too, had come the invalid, his blanketed legs 
 extended helplessly on the chair before him, 
 trundled there, for an airing, by the silent Fili- 
 pino. His head was bare, the ocean wind stir- 
 ring the light-brown hair. There was something 
 pathetic about that blowing hair when one con- 
 
120 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 trasted it with the still limbs and disfiguring 
 dark glasses. But this thought did not occur 
 until later. Now, I saw with a little glow of 
 satisfaction that he was deep in conversation 
 with Joan, who sat demurely in a small rocker 
 beside him while his thin white hand stroked the 
 little 'girl's silky dark hair. Even as I looked 
 his white teeth showed at some quaint expression 
 of hers — the first time I had seen him smile 
 since his mournful advent into Dune House. 
 
 I went forward with some half-formed idea of 
 joining them. At the sound of my footsteps both 
 conversationalists turned toward me, Joan's 
 brown eyes glistening with delight, the black 
 glasses of the man pathetically strained in my 
 direction. 
 
 " It 's Miss Belmont, goody ! " Joan dropped 
 the doll unceremoniously on its back and skipped 
 to meet me. " Cousin George is telling me about 
 the Filipinos and about the funny little brown 
 babies and the bamboo houses built up on poles. 
 You sit down and listen, Miss Belmont, it 's aw- 
 fully inter-res£ing." , 
 
 " I 'd love to," I was saying with real cordial- 
 ity, when I was checked by the bleakness which 
 overspread the man's unsmiling mouth. His 
 voice became constrained, his head turned 
 slightly from me. 
 
 u I 'm afraid Miss Belmont would n't care for 
 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 121 
 
 my line of talk, Joan. Those things just interest 
 you and me." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " I took his constraint for embarrass- 
 ment. " I 'm as eager as Joan. Please go on, 
 Mr. Haldayne. I '11 promise to be a most appre- 
 ciative audience." 
 
 I was extending the palm-leaf of understand- 
 ing sympathy, and extending it, I flattered my- 
 self, in a sincere and inoffensive manner, but I 
 was amazed at the unmistakable coldness of his 
 reply. His face was averted even more, the 
 mouth compressed as determinedly as Miss Hal- 
 dayne's could have done. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, you are very kind " — and 
 oh the bleakness of the words ! — " but I 'm sure 
 you'll excuse me when I say I ? m getting tired. 
 Talking is wearisome." 
 
 There was a quality in the tone which I could 
 only interpret as frank dislike. For the moment 
 amazement kept me sitting in the chair Joan had 
 placed for me, ridiculously cradling the big doll 
 in my lap. I was at a loss to account for this 
 treatment. True, I was no bewildering beauty ; 
 men had never risked life and limb to gain my 
 favor as in Miss Drusilla's ever-green memories, 
 but neither had they shown the unmistakable re- 
 pulsion I read into the reply I had just received 
 from this blind man. I could generally amuse 
 and interest them; like Miss Drusilla, I could 
 
122 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 remember dances where I was no wall-flower — 
 college dances just passed — but this coldness 
 — it was really an insult. 
 
 Smarting with hurt pride, I arose and replaced 
 the big doll in Joan's arms. " Of course if you 
 are weary I would not dream of insisting, Mr. 
 Haldayne," I said quietly, relieved to find that 
 my voice did not quiver. " I thought that you 
 might care for some adult company. I am 
 sorry." 
 
 I moved away, fiercely combating a feminine 
 impulse to cry. Not until I was stepping 
 through the long window did I look back. 
 
 Over the top of the high-backed chair I could 
 see the light-brown hair blowing; Joan was once 
 more ensconced in her little rocker, apparently 
 deeply immersed in the continued conversation. 
 
 Even had I been less deeply hurt at this return 
 to my well-meant advances, the manner of the 
 paralytic man toward me would have kept me at 
 my distance. To his aunts, when he could 
 not avoid speaking to them, his tone held a cour- 
 teous coolness. To me his behavior plainly in- 
 dicated unconquerable dislike. Only toward the 
 two children did he show another and a less 
 austere side. Whenever their play-time arrived 
 his chair could be heard rolling along the hall to 
 the sunny side veranda. He seemed especially 
 fond of Joan. Her dark head was always to be 
 
THE PARALYTIC MAN 123 
 
 found near his lighter one. Their conversations 
 were long and mysterious, running from the deep- 
 est gravity, when Joan appeared to do most of 
 the talking, to sheer fun, to judge from the little 
 girl's peals of treble laughter, which came to my 
 ears while I sat reading or sewing in my own 
 shadowy room. Indeed, I was beginning to grow 
 sensitive about my little satellite's desertion 
 when something happened to turn the channel of 
 my thoughts. 
 
 To every one's unspoken surprise, Miss Hal- 
 dayne failed to come down to breakfast one morn- 
 ing. She had a headache, Miss Drusilla was in- 
 formed curtly through the closed door when she 
 wheezed her way up to her sister's room to in- 
 quire. Eliza Haldayne with a headache, — or 
 giving in to one if that phenomenon had actually 
 occurred! My reason rejected the idea and my 
 thoughts busied themselves throughout breakfast 
 to such effect that when I had finally pushed my 
 chair from the table and followed Joan and 
 Harry from the room, I was not too greatly as- 
 tonished to see my employer half hidden behind 
 the red portieres which hung before the arch of 
 the shadowy back parlor. As she saw herself 
 observed her fingers were laid on her lips, black 
 eyes, compelling, resting on my face. 
 
 She was unseen, either by the children skip- 
 ping before me or by Miss Drusilla lumbering 
 
124 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 behind. I obeyed the unspoken command in that 
 stern face and, calling to the children, I sent 
 them scampering to the school-room by them- 
 selves. Miss Drusilla wheezed her way down the 
 side hall to the broom-closet. 
 
 I stepped behind the heavy curtain. 
 
 Miss Haldayne shut and locked the door and 
 pulled the curtain over the keyhole before she 
 faced me. Her lips were compressed rigidly, 
 her eyes were glassy in the dim light which 
 seeped between the chinks of the shutters. 
 
 " Ann," — the dead calmness of her voice was 
 more nerve-racking than sheer panic would have 
 been — " this morning I found another of those 
 notes." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ANN PUTS HER TRUST IN FLOUR 
 
 JUST why memory paints the back parlor at 
 Dune House in such hateful shades I have 
 often wondered. Nothing ever happened there, 
 — -nothing, that is, more than happened in the 
 other rooms of the rambling great house. The 
 same subtle menace overhung them all; yet, 
 oddly enough, this one close-shuttered room in- 
 curred my remembered dislike more than any. 
 There was something about its high-ceiled gloom, 
 about the sepulchral hush which seemed to brood 
 in its musty hangings, in the protruding knobs 
 of the ugly walnut furniture thrusting them- 
 selves out of the shadows; something about the 
 unpleasant high lights on the glass covering 
 crayons of dead-and-gone people, which was in- 
 describably dreary. 
 
 Here the unwholesome spirit of the place be- 
 came a very tangible presence. I felt my nerves 
 recoil from its black threat; felt upon me eyes 
 which I could not see ; felt my courage grow faint 
 with the chill of its being as I took the slip of 
 
 125 
 
126 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 paper from Eliza Haldayne's unsteady extended 
 hand. 
 
 The sprawling, uneven writing was shockingly 
 familiar; more picturesquely cryptic than be- 
 fore: 
 
 So surely as the sun rises, so surely will They come. 
 Was the Pack of The Yellow Wolf ever known to tire? 
 
 I handled the paper with a repugnance I could 
 barely conceal and remained silent. 
 
 Miss Haldayne continued in that visibly main- 
 tained calm : " It was there when I got up this 
 morning. My desk was open — this lying in the 
 center. My own paper and pen had been used 
 to write it, even though I 'd put the pen in a 
 place I never keep it. Ann, my door was locked 
 when I went to bed last night ; it was locked this 
 morning when I got up. Ann, how do they get 
 in?" 
 
 The poignant cry sent another shiver of fear 
 through me. All of the old ghost-stories, all of 
 the too-highly seasoned literature with which I 
 had tortured an alert imagination during child- 
 hood, trooped back on my paralyzed reason. 
 Limp apparitions through which the hand passed 
 when it sought to grasp them ; clammy specters 
 with an unattractive habit of carrying their 
 heads in their extended hands; white maidens 
 unpleasantly allowing the background to be seen 
 
ANN PUTS HEE TEUST IN FLOUE 127 
 
 through their misty figures, filed in gruesome 
 procession before me. What, in Heaven's name, 
 was it that could pass through locked doors and 
 barred windows to leave this eerie trail behind 
 it? For the moment intelligence was cowed be- 
 neath the race-old dread of the supernatural; 
 then that lately acquired skepticism struggled 
 toward daylight. 
 
 "Miss Haldayne," — I spoke impatiently, — 
 " how am I to help you if I am left in the dark 
 like this? Tell me of what you 're afraid, whom 
 you suspect. Then we can put our heads to- 
 gether and make some progress. This way I 'm 
 left utterly at sea." 
 
 For the moment she seemed torn by some in- 
 ward struggle, her fierce black eyes staring at 
 the end of the room where the sun had thrust 
 one golden sliver through the shutters to tremble 
 on the faded stuffed back of a chair. Her mouth 
 was grim, but the usually quiet fingers were nerv- 
 ously folding her percale skirt into innumerable 
 little pleats, the only sign of the tumult raging 
 beneath her calm. Finally she spoke in a tight 
 voice. 
 
 " Nothing to tell," she brought out stubbornly. 
 " I could n't figure it out myself, that 's all. / 
 don't know what the thing means," — her eyes 
 shifted here, then came back to rest too defiantly 
 on my face. " I can't understand how any — 
 
128 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 how any one could get into my room when I 'd 
 locked the door; how they could find my pen 
 when I 'd hidden it, and write this without wak- 
 ing me. I 'm a light sleeper, especially lately. 
 The thing's beyond me. I told you because I 
 just had to tell somebody. It's a fool trick; I 
 knew you could n't help, but — I just had to tell 
 somebody ! " 
 
 She wheeled abruptly and left, her starched 
 skirts rattling down the long hall, the high win- 
 dow at the end framing her ever-diminishing sil- 
 houette in a border of white light. 
 
 I stood motionless for the moment in the back 
 parlor, too astonished to move. I was not ac- 
 customed to thinking of Miss Haldayne in fem- 
 inine terms, but that betraying weakness of fem- 
 ininity, whether it comes from blond curls and 
 organdie, or, as in this case, from gray hair and 
 percale, — this indiscreet indulgence in revealing 
 a secret for the mere relief of sharing it, — struck 
 a fountain of sympathy in me. 
 
 I returned to the school-room in a daze. Of 
 the cryptic wording of the note I could make 
 little sense, but it had a bizarre form, an embroid- 
 ery of language which pointed to the Oriental — 
 which pointed to the figure I disliked and dis- 
 trusted most in this strange household. It could 
 be no one but Hoang who had access to the keys 
 of the house, who could prowl at his ease when 
 
ANN PUTS HER TRUST IN FLOUR 129 
 
 the place was wrapped in darkness, — Hoang, 
 who could move so silently in his felt slippers 
 that one was not aware he was behind one 
 until the startled nerves jumped. Miss Hal- 
 dayne's stubborn refusal to accept this obvi- 
 ous solution filled me with impatience. Very 
 well, I told the tight-lipped girl in the mirror as 
 I tidied the top of my dresser, if Hoang could 
 prowl through the sleeping house at night, so 
 could I. I too would borrow the weapons of 
 stealth. I nerved myself to this by an unusual 
 severity of manner, a severity which caused the 
 two children to eye me with unspoken astonish- 
 ment, their little hearts feeling that something 
 was wrong which their little tongues could not 
 express. For the first time I caused Joan tears 
 when I discovered her rather unbeautifully chew- 
 ing gum — obtained the good Lord alone knows 
 where. At any other time the frightened aston- 
 ishment of those dark eyes would have shamed 
 me into mildness; now, however, I assumed the 
 air of an offended goddess and gingerly holding 
 the confiscated package between thumb and fore- 
 finger I dropped it into the waste-basket in my 
 own room. How are the mighty fallen ! I could 
 not foresee the use I was to make of that offend- 
 ing gum a few short hours from then. 
 
 In the middle of the afternoon, when Joan's 
 distant treble proclaimed her whereabouts as 
 
130 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 well as that of Harry and the paralytic man to 
 be on the ocean veranda ; when I had heard Miss 
 Drusilla wheeze up to her diurnal siesta and Miss 
 Haldayne, I knew, was cleaning out the preserve- 
 closet with Hoang's assistance, I slipped into the 
 Chinaman's room through the door, half-opened 
 to give free draft to the ocean breeze. It might 
 have been the room of an ascetic. A small w T hite 
 iron cot, two prim chairs, a " Rock of Ages " in 
 a deep frame made of putty and sea-shells, — 
 surely that had begun its life in some New 
 England seaside village, — and, what I was look- 
 ing for, a Bible, its black leather cover worn 
 brown from much handling, lying in state on 
 the small marble-topped table. 
 
 I lifted the limp black cover. I was not dis- 
 appointed. There were several texts, favorites 
 apparently, copied in a neat copperplate hand on 
 the yellowed fly-leaf. I compared them with the 
 note I had retained. I had not expected to find 
 a marked similarity between the two, but the 
 lack of any likeness in the handwritings left me 
 more puzzled than before. I silently replaced 
 the book and returned to my own room. 
 
 That night I blew out my center hanging- 
 lamp at the usual hour for retiring and sat 
 quietly in the dark, fully clothed, waiting. 
 
 It is an awesome thing to listen to a house 
 settling down for the night. I heard Miss Dru- 
 
ANN PUTS HER TRUST IN FLOUR 131 
 
 silla, Miss Haldayne, Hoang, go to their rooms 
 in turn. Now it seemed that the old building 
 was turning in, and doing so with a variety of 
 grunts and creaks, of ghostly sighs and stealthy 
 steps of which I had not been cognizant by day. 
 Was it a troubled conscience which was hurting 
 the old place and causing its nocturnal grum- 
 bles? I heard ghostly doors open and slyly shut 
 where doors had never been ; a hall stair squeaked 
 as though under an unseen foot, though I was 
 certain that nothing had passed my door to go 
 down it. There was but little breeze to-night 
 and what there was blew from the land. The 
 sound of the ocean was very far away, like the 
 muffled roaring inside a sea-shell; the darkness 
 was rich and brooding. A hollow boom sounded 
 from the dark cavern of downstairs. I was in- 
 stantly all nerves, but it was followed by another 
 and still others; the tall grandfather's clock in 
 the living-room was striking eleven. At the 
 cessation of the solemn strokes the silence ap- 
 peared to surge in again. I heard spectral clocks 
 ticking and abruptly stop. A board snapped in 
 the hall outside and I jumped. The next mo- 
 ment I took myself severely in hand, and, breath 
 suspended, stealthily opened the door and crept 
 into the dark passage. 
 
 The myriad little lamps which blossomed exot- 
 ically on their myriad little shelves were blown 
 
132 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 out, — Hoang's last duty before he retired, — but 
 their coal-oil ghosts still lingered. The stair- 
 way was a gaping void which led downward to 
 stygian depths, but I had my teeth set hard on 
 my courage by now. The stairs creaked abom- 
 inably as I gave them my weight. My heart was 
 pounding my ribs with sledge-hammer blows 
 when I finally gained the lower hall and stood, 
 one foot still lingering on the unseen stairs, one 
 hand gripped about the smooth, worn banister. 
 
 Still only the mysterious snaps and creaks 
 which, reason hysterically assured me, was 
 merely contraction in the old boards after 
 the heat of the day. Above-stairs all seemed 
 sleeping. 
 
 I groped my way silently down the long hall, 
 past the dismal back parlor, past the more cheer- 
 ful sitting-room where a weak, watery moon, just 
 broken through the fog, glanced slyly in through 
 the wire-meshed window to peek at me as I slid 
 by the half-opened door. 
 
 What subtle change is it that a great house 
 undergoes at night? Familiar things are in- 
 describably altered; it is as though well-known 
 features were lit with a strange expression. Not 
 that it is lonely, — it is not here that the threat 
 lies, — rather it is from the lack of aloneness 
 that our nerves shrink, from some too-vital pres- 
 ence just hidden from our eyes, as though dark- 
 
ANN PUTS HER TRUST IN FLOUR 133 
 
 ness embodied the mean, harmful thoughts of the 
 daytime and gave them the right to move about 
 the place of their birth. This fancy was preg- 
 nant with horrid possibilities. The shadows 
 took on substance; they became something less 
 than human, more than ether. They seemed to 
 brush me as I slipped through them like the dis- 
 gusting cobwebs in my nightmare on the night of 
 the death-howl. An old childish fear of the dark 
 was uncovered in my mind. I remembered the 
 times when, afraid to admit the weakness to 
 adults, I would bellow hymns at the top of my 
 frightened lungs if it became necessary to go 
 into a dark room, like a little pagan putting my 
 trust in signs and spells. The memory was a 
 godsend now; it fanned to life my flickering 
 sense of humor and strengthened my shaking 
 knees. Ridicule, even when self-administered, is 
 an effective stimulant. 
 
 So through what seemed endless years of grop- 
 ing I came to the kitchen at the extreme end of 
 the passage. Up to now I had been moving in 
 a strange world, dependent upon touch and hear- 
 ing, — senses used at but half their power in 
 these degenerate days. Now the king of the fac- 
 ulties, Sight, leaped to command with the open- 
 ing of the door to the moon-flooded kitchen, and 
 instantly my world spun in its accustomed orbit 
 again. 
 
134 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 The moon was near its zenith as I slipped into 
 the deserted room and noiselessly closed the door 
 behind me. It imprinted the great white square 
 of the window, mesh-covered, on the floor. It 
 cast precise black shadows of the pots and pans 
 hanging in prim rows about the wainscoting 
 and showed the squatting great coal-stove in the 
 corner like some clumsy quadruped, crouched to 
 spring. 
 
 My movements were less fearful as I crossed 
 swiftly to the dish-closet. I found what I 
 wanted instantly, a shallow china dish. There 
 was a slight protesting squeak from the flour- 
 bin when I opened it — was there ever a flour- 
 bin that would n't squeak ! — then I had scooped 
 up a dishful of flour, closed the bin, and was on 
 the return journey, noiselessly releasing the 
 knob of the kitchen door after me. Exultation 
 at successfully accomplishing half of my mission 
 had banished the childish fear by now. All day 
 I had been haunting the hall, awaiting my chance 
 to slip into the kitchen and get this flour, and 
 all day Hoang had unknowingly prevented me. 
 In the dark I felt my face taking on what a 
 room-mate had once called my " Scotch expres- 
 sion.- ' I was grimly resolved to make some head- 
 way in the maddening mystery which was cling- 
 ing to the old house, and of which Miss Haldayne 
 had so stubbornly refused to speak. A little 
 
ANN PUTS HEE TRUST IN FLOUR 135 
 
 flour sprinkled before her door, where in the 
 blackness an unsuspecting foot must step into it, 
 and much would be clear that was now too tanta- 
 lizingly vague. Unless the writer of those mys- 
 terious notes could fly, some record of his passing 
 would be written in the trap. If no visit was to 
 be made to Miss Haldayne to-night (I grimly 
 tightened my lips here), I should continue to 
 sprinkle flour and keep it up until some evidence 
 was obtained. If she were confronted by the flat 
 imprint of Hoang's felt slipper, Miss Haldayne's 
 stubborn belief was bound to be broken down. 
 
 All this time I was silently stealing along the 
 dark lower hall once more, past the empty rooms, 
 their doors yawning like the mouths of so many 
 caves. From the little sitting-room came a hol- 
 low boom which threatened the flour-dish in my 
 hand and turned me weak for the moment, until 
 reason recognized it as the grandfather clock 
 striking eleven-thirty. 
 
 I found the foot of the stairs and cautiously 
 ran one hand along the banister, testing each 
 step tentatively before I mounted. I had made 
 seven of them in dead silence when something — 
 that sixth sense, perhaps, which scientists can- 
 not classify — stopped me, frozen in the act of 
 stepping up. 
 
 I have marveled at this since; certainly my 
 physical ears had heard nothing, nor had my 
 
136 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 strained eyes seen, yet I stopped as a horse will 
 stop on an apparently empty road when danger 
 lurks in the bend ahead. 
 
 Then it came; the sound I had heard before 
 it came; a protesting creak from the blackness 
 above me, a creak that grows only from a heavy 
 weight. The meaning burst on my brain like a 
 blinding light and I staggered mentally. Some 
 one was standing on the stairs ahead, blocking 
 my way. 
 
 After the first numb chill this brought, circula- 
 tion surged through me again; without facing 
 about I promptly stepped back, noiselessly feel- 
 ing for the stair below with my stockinged foot. 
 There was no very definite thought in my head; 
 one does not think at such a time, I 've found out. 
 I acted instinctively, choosing the only way out 
 which was open to me. 
 
 Four — three — two, I backed, frantic at the 
 need for silence which forbade more haste. My 
 face was glued fearfully to the area of blackness 
 out of which another muffled squeak had come as 
 the heavy weight was shifted down a step. 
 
 The moon was coming about the corner of the 
 house; the high narrow window in the bend of 
 the stairs was growing gray; in another minute 
 it would silhouette the stealthy figure. Perhaps 
 Hoang had heard me moving about the kitchen 
 and had come down to investigate. I was, in a 
 
ANN PUTS HEE TRUST IN FLOUR 137 
 
 way, to have my curiosity satisfied with disquiet- 
 ing promptness. 
 
 My backing foot felt frantically for the floor, 
 found it, and I lowered myself to the hall as the 
 black silhouette of a groping hand stole across 
 the graying window-pane. 
 
 I did not flee, I could not. I was rooted to 
 the spot by terrified curiosity. My heart was 
 chill, my tongue cleaved dryly to the roof of my 
 mouth, my eyes fastened on that growing hand. 
 
 The window was being slowly eclipsed now, 
 the arm to the elbow — to the shoulder — then 
 the head, came to view, bordered in gray light 
 from the moon-flooded dunes outside. 
 
 The terror I had known before was nothing to 
 this that overwhelmed me now ; the horror I had 
 known was a mere pin-prick to the sharp fright 
 that pierced my heart. I did not scream merely 
 because I could not; only my stiffened fingers 
 gripped over the edge saved the flour-dish from 
 crashing to the floor in the dark. The figure sil- 
 houetted there against the narrow window was 
 not the figure of Hoang; it was the paralytic 
 man — and walking! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 
 
 AS the figure passed the gray square and the 
 window became unblemished again, the 
 apathy of fear which had held me gave way to 
 terrified energy. One hand outstretched ahead 
 of me, to save my eyes from unexpected door- 
 jambs, I flew before it down the dark hall, my 
 stockinged feet making no noise, luckily, though 
 silence was now secondary to the blind need for 
 haste. 
 
 Why I did not slip into one of the opened 
 side rooms — the front parlor or the sitting- 
 room, whose yawning door invited — I have since 
 asked myself. The mind can hold but one object 
 in time of panic, one image of safety on which 
 the mental shutter refuses to close. Now my 
 mind was focussed on one lone place of refuge, 
 the kitchen I had just quitted, where the moon 
 took away the threat the darkness held. I 
 fumbled the knob and it rattled ; the door clicked 
 ever so slightly as I closed it. I slumped on the 
 floor, between the wall and the stove, my heart 
 
 138 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 139 
 
 rocking me with its mighty thumps. I did not 
 faint, — I am not the fainting kind, — but my 
 knees had turned to water and refused to sup- 
 port me longer. Not even when I heard the 
 kitchen door slowly open and saw a dark figure 
 slip through did I faint, though my heart must 
 surely have been heard by the intruder and my 
 eyes ached with the intensity of my stare. 
 
 I was out of sight there in the shadows down 
 by the stove, but the darkness was suddenly 
 cleft by a thin shaft of white light and the elec- 
 tric torch found my huddled form and splashed 
 across my face. 
 
 That broke the spell which held me. The 
 flour-dish tilted and its contents cascaded down 
 my skirt. As though he read the impulse in my 
 face, the light suddenly winked out and the man 
 had swooped and grasped me painfully by the 
 throat. 
 
 " Don't scream, I won't hurt you ! " It was a 
 fierce whisper; then, more calmly, as I proved 
 my total inability to do anything like screaming : 
 " If I let you go, will you promise to be quiet? 
 I give my word I '11 not hurt you. Promise? " 
 
 I wagged my head feebly, the only thing I 
 could do, and he released me slowly, ready to 
 throttle me again at the first indication of break- 
 ing my word. For the moment I could only 
 swallow to relieve my outraged windpipe, then 
 
140 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 I recovered the half -emptied dish, the flour trick- 
 ling to the floor in a little white waterfall as I 
 did so. 
 
 Much of my terror was gone now. Here was 
 treachery instead of mystery. The paralytic 
 blind man, who was neither paralyzed nor blind 
 (the eyes hidden behind the smoked glasses were 
 handsome hazel ones, bright as Joan's own), re- 
 garded me sternly. 
 
 " What do you mean by slipping about the 
 house at this hour of the night? " he demanded 
 in a stern whisper. 
 
 It was an excellent bracer. My backbone 
 straightened and my cold face suddenly tingled. 
 " What do you mean," I whispered hotly back, 
 " by imposing on all of us ! — by pretending to be 
 paralyzed when you can snoop about the place 
 after we 've all gone to bed ! — pretending to be 
 blind when you can see in the dark — ! " 
 
 I choked and he shook his head warningly in 
 the moonlight. 
 
 " Not so loud ; they '11 hear upstairs," he whis- 
 pered. " Look here, it 's cards on the table for 
 both of us. You 're the last person I expected to 
 run into. Do you mind explaining? Why the 
 flour? " 
 
 " Not at all," I returned in a cool whisper, 
 though my heart was pounding, " if you '11 first 
 explain why the walk? " 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 141 
 
 He laughed silently. I could see the hazel 
 eyes twinkling in the moonlight and I was aware 
 of a secret gladness, even under my fright, that 
 they could twinkle like that instead of being for- 
 ever darkened behind disfiguring glasses. 
 
 " I asked first. My explanation is long. 
 Politeness requires — " 
 
 "Oh, all right." I tried to be calm. "A 
 mustard-plaster. I have a touch of pleurisy and 
 I did n't think it necessary to wake the whole 
 house over it." 
 
 He looked at the flour still left in the dish, at 
 the white Niagara which had left its trace on my 
 skirt. 
 
 " That would make a mustard-plaster for an 
 elephant, — one learns such things on the western 
 front. However, a mustard-plaster goes with 
 me. It 's a poor time to make a long explana- 
 tion, but I '11 be as brief as possible. There 's 
 no one over us, that 's a blessing. My room 's 
 above here ; that 's how I happened to hear you. 
 I don't believe there 's another soul awake in the 
 place." 
 
 He paused and we both listened intently for a 
 moment, heads slightly on one side, ears strained 
 to catch the faintest noise. The silence almost 
 rang in its intensity. Then, in a whisper which 
 certainly did not penetrate beyond the closed 
 kitchen, the man spoke. 
 
142 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " There 's only one way to tell this so you '11 
 see it in its real colors; that's from the begin- 
 ning, and the beginning is Florence — Joan and 
 Harry's mother. I first saw Florence when I 
 was a boy of thirteen. She was eighteen then 
 and one of the most charming things God ever 
 made." He gave a short, noiseless laugh. " I 
 must have been an odd sort of little tad. You 
 see, my father had always lived abroad with me 
 after my mother's death. Florence was my aunt 
 — it seems strange to think of her in that rela- 
 tionship. All the adoration of a rather romantic 
 boy with old-world standards was lavished on 
 her. Don't laugh, Miss Belmont," I had shown 
 no intention of so doing. " It was calf love, I 
 know, or is it so calf -like, that first pure, wor- 
 shipful adoration a very young boy feels for a 
 pretty woman who has been kind to him, a woman 
 who is a star to his lofty fancy ? Why don't they 
 call it knight love? That was the way I adored 
 Florence." He stopped and listened intently. 
 I too strained my ears to the silence. Then in a 
 moment he spoke again in the same guarded 
 whisper. 
 
 " I think Florence knew it, her manner was so 
 sweetly sympathetic. I left before that ideal 
 could be dissipated. My father died over there 
 in Europe and I went to Manila, to my mother's 
 people. I 'm making this short, so I '11 come 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 143 
 
 back again to Florence. The next time I saw 
 her, I was in my twenties. I had seen more of 
 the world by then and in my mind was a little 
 superior pity for the callow youth I had been. 
 I called for old times' sake. It was one of those 
 fortunate calls; the beginning of a swift and 
 strong friendship, a friendship I still feel though 
 I 'm the only one left now. She was married ; I 
 saw the two youngsters then — Harry was only a 
 baby. Rather to my surprise — life makes us so 
 skeptical ! — she was even more charming in her 
 maturity than she had remained in my boyish 
 fancy." He suddenly broke off and looked at me 
 intently. 
 
 " Odd, our standing here calmly, like this, as 
 though we were not the only ones awake in this 
 great house. I ? ve always thought such scenes, 
 long explanations like this, were overdrawn in 
 fiction ; yet it seems quite natural now." 
 
 The same thought had occurred to me, but I 
 only nodded impatiently. My nerves had been 
 shattered that night, but I was determined to* 
 let no explanations be postponed, now that I was 
 holding one thread to the mystery. 
 
 He correctly interpreted my gesture and pro- 
 ceeded. " I like to think now what a clear, true 
 friendship that short visit created between Flor- 
 ence, between Harry her husband and me. I 
 was a trusted younger brother to them — the 
 
144 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 truest friends I have ever had in my life. Well, 
 I 'm going into this detail so you '11 understand 
 why I acted as I did. 
 
 " They were flung from a machine, after I had 
 returned to Manila; Harry was instantly killed. 
 Florence lingered some weeks. And she wrote 
 me a letter. 
 
 " Mail was slow in getting to the Philippines. 
 The war in Europe had embroiled us then. 
 When that letter reached Manila I was in 
 France. It was forwarded there. Florence had 
 been dead eight months when I learned of it. It 
 was not a long letter. Sweet and straightfor- 
 ward, like Florence herself. She had known 
 that she would not recover and her care was for 
 her children. Their only other relatives were 
 her own sisters, Eliza and Drusilla. Florence 
 did not state why, — she was always slow to re- 
 flect unfavorably on any one, — but I could read 
 her terror of the children going to live with them. 
 I read a fear into that letter, a fear lying be- 
 tween the lines as though Florence herself were 
 not sure what she dreaded, for it certainly was 
 not there when the eye alone scanned the words. 
 She wanted me to have the children, to put them 
 in a school if necessary, but not to let them re- 
 main under the same roof with the aunts. Evi- 
 dently she anticipated no trouble in this. There 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 145 
 
 was nothing mentioned in her will and Harry 
 had made none. My only claim to the children 
 was that given me by the mother's letter and — 
 one of war's little ironies, Miss Belmont ; the bar- 
 racks are poor safeguards for valuables — that 
 letter was lost. Destroyed, no doubt, as rubbish 
 when I was wounded." 
 
 Once again he paused and we listened to the 
 ringing silence which filled the house. He had 
 spoken rapidly but with all caution. I touched 
 his sleeve as a signal to resume the story. 
 
 " It was being wounded which first suggested 
 this masquerade to my mind. A fall from an 
 aeroplane resulted in temporary paralysis and a 
 severe shock to tile optic nerve. During the long 
 warm afternoons while I lay in that French hos- 
 pital, listening to the distant exploding of bombs, 
 I planned future action. I never for a moment 
 doubted I should get well ; all the doctors assured 
 me of that. When I was permitted I determined 
 to come to this coast and get possession of the 
 children, to take them back to Manila with me if 
 necessary. 
 
 " That vague fear in Florence's letter had me 
 worried. I recalled my Aunt Eliza as a tall, 
 dark, austere woman, nothing at all like sweet 
 Florence, or the frivolous beauty of the family, 
 Drusilla. I sensed a poignant appeal in the let- 
 
146 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 ter and connected it with Aunt Eliza. But 
 there was nothing definite, no fact on which to 
 hang a theory." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, while his anxious 
 hazel eyes seemed studying my face through the 
 semi-gloom. The moon sailed behind a cloud, 
 but I could feel the intent gaze still upon me. 
 His voice came out of the darkness in a vibrant 
 whisper : 
 
 " When I came to San Francisco I found the 
 same morass of vagueness surrounding me. 
 Only two elderly sisters remained of the once 
 numerous Haldaynes, — two spinsters living 
 down here in a moldy house among desolate sand- 
 dunes. Not until I had proved myself beyond 
 all doubt as being a blood relation was I able to 
 wring this much from the family lawyer, a dusty 
 little man in a monk's cell of an office. The mad- 
 dening air of mystery, the exasperating caution 
 which shrouded each point made me pause. My 
 one legal claim to the children — Florence's let- 
 ter — was lost. If for some hidden reason of her 
 own Aunt Eliza wished to put up a fight for their 
 guardianship, I was beaten before I began. I 
 determined to fight fire with fire, — to discover 
 how the land lay and learn what that vague ter- 
 ror could be that I sensed in Florence's letter. 
 
 " My recent accident suggested a way to do 
 this. My Filipino * boy ' was the one human I 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 147 
 
 trusted to help me act the part. You know the 
 rest. I rather counted on you to help me if 
 necessary, the day I first saw you." 
 
 " But you seemed to dislike — " I stopped in 
 confusion. 
 
 " I seemed to dislike you? " He finished it for 
 me, his tone suddenly warm and friendly. " I 
 was afraid of you, my little lady. Your gray 
 eyes are as bright and quick as a sea-bird's. I 
 trembled for my disguise when you drew near." 
 
 There was a subtle compliment in his tone, 
 something that sent a delicious thrill of excite- 
 ment chasing up my back. As a consequence my 
 tone was unusually severe when I responded : 
 
 "What have you discovered? What is the 
 mystery of this place? " 
 
 I sensed that he made a baffled gesture in the 
 dark. " I don't know," and his voice was weary. 
 " Something 's wrong — you Ve felt that, I guess. 
 I 've been questioning Joan, the little sieve ! 
 She 's given me a jumble of fact and fancy which 
 has led me no farther than my own nose. Aunt 
 Eliza 's bitterly afraid of something, but with 
 Joan's chatter of Bluebeard Chambers, of some- 
 thing ' scary ' in the sand-dunes, of Hoang's 
 nightmares, and a lot more vague stuff, I '11 con- 
 fess I 'm at sea." 
 
 He paused as though waiting for me to say 
 something. Certainly I was farther along than 
 
148 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 George Rogers Haldayne toward the solving of 
 the mystery. As yet he knew, or pretended to 
 know, nothing about the mysterious notes. I 
 had seen the Chinaman up the gully. I sensed 
 Miss Drusilla's fear of the secret room. I had 
 recognized Hoang's nightmare for what it really 
 was. Yet I said nothing. 
 
 As though determined to pry an opinion from 
 me, he spoke again. " You have felt this menace 
 too; what do you think of it? " 
 
 The words rushed from me against my will. 
 " I don't trust Hoang." 
 
 His quiet whisper came back : " Neither do I. 
 That fellow has something to do with it, I 'm 
 sure. Aunt Eliza 's keen for him, though." 
 
 A sudden repugnance at thus standing here in 
 the dark kitchen discussing my employer in whis- 
 pers, swept over me. His next w T ords inter- 
 rupted my silent movement toward the door. 
 
 " I heard some one moving around down here ; 
 my room 's right above, you know. I suspected 
 it was the Chinaman up to some deviltry, so I 
 came down. I had no idea of scaring the wits 
 out of you." 
 
 Unconsciously he moved one hand in the gloom 
 and what fitful light there was outlined dully 
 the ugly stub of an automatic in his hand. It 
 sent a peculiar nausea over me. My whisper 
 shook when it came. 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 149 
 
 " We must n't stand here talking. They 're 
 liable to hear us. To-morrow, when you 're on 
 the veranda, I '11 pretend to read to you and we 
 can discuss it then." 
 
 I jumped as his hand crept over mine in the 
 gloom. " You 're a marvel, Miss Belmont. 
 You 're the most wonderful girl I 've ever 
 known ! " His tone, cramped though it was into 
 a whisper, w T as vibrant, caressing even. The 
 warm magnetism of his touch, the intent gaze of 
 his hazel eyes through the dusk, made my silly 
 heart leap like any romantic school-girl's. 
 
 I almost snatched my hand away and answered 
 tartly : " Your acquaintance must have been 
 sadly limited then, Mr. Haldayne. I 've got to 
 go up and make my mustard-plaster." 
 
 I heard him smother a chuckle at the flatness 
 of this and we slipped out into the long black 
 hall. 
 
 Following a man with a pistol up a dark stair- 
 case is an infinite improvement upon slipping 
 down those same stairs alone. The trip was 
 made in a silence like death, save for two creaks. 
 In the black upper hall I found my own door 
 and opened it noiselessly. An encouraging grip 
 on the wrist and my companion crept silently by 
 to his own. I did not hear a click as he let him- 
 self into his room, but I sensed the moment the 
 door closed. 
 
150 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 In the black area of my own room I waited, 
 sitting tensely on the edge of the bed, the flour- 
 dish, for which I had risked so much, cradled in 
 my lap. 
 
 Moments passed, endless eons of time, a little 
 foretaste of eternity. I heard the clock boom 
 twelve and again become swallowed up in silence. 
 Still I sat on, ears strained, hands folded — and 
 chewing gum! chewing, with a rhythmic and 
 businesslike intensity, the very gum I had confis- 
 cated from Joan that afternoon. And as I 
 chewed my thoughts churned steadily over the 
 events of the evening, over the story George 
 Kogers Haldayne had told me, reliving the mo- 
 ment of terror in the kitchen, the moment of re- 
 lief which had followed — that thrilling moment 
 of nearness when he whispered how wonderful I 
 was — and always here I took myself severely in 
 hand and chewed more vigorously than ever. 
 
 When enough time had elapsed for the crea- 
 tion of an entire new solar system, another hol- 
 low boom welled up through the aching void. 
 
 Then I arose and, dish firmly gripped, felt my 
 way to the door. Only my sense of direction told 
 me that I was out in the hall, for the moon had 
 disappeared by now and the thick blackness lay 
 heavy everywhere. My finger-tips brushed the 
 walls as I stole down to Miss Haldayne's room. 
 Deep breathing came faintly from behind the 
 
MIDNIGHT PROWLERS 151 
 
 door, and my pounding heart outraced it while 
 I scattered the flour on the floor boards. 
 
 A return trip to my own opened room, to leave 
 the now empty dish on the untouched bed, then 
 I was out in the black hall once more, my stock- 
 inged feet treading their cautious way to the 
 door of Hoang. 
 
 To my excited fancy the pounding of my heart 
 was filling the empty place with echoes. My fin- 
 gers shook as I pulled a hair from my head. I 
 fumbled the mass of chewing-gum while I ex- 
 tracted two small pieces, my tense face screwed 
 up with dislike of the sticky mess. The rest 
 rather unsanitarily went back into my mouth 
 while I reached up and stretched the hair across 
 the crack between the door and its jamb, and 
 sealed each end with a tiny wad of gum. 
 
 I heard the Chinaman turn over restlessly and 
 my heart stood still until deep respiration told 
 of his continued slumber. 
 
 My arms were heavy with weakness when I 
 dropped them to my sides after my task, but 
 there was a fierce satisfaction in my brain. No 
 one could leave the room that night without 
 betraying it by the broken hair in the morning. 
 
 I was calmer as I moved to Miss Drusilla's 
 room and repeated the process, sacrificing an- 
 other hair to the cause. There was something 
 reassuring about Miss Drusilla's frank snores. 
 
152 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 For a moment, after completing this I stood con- 
 sidering, my arms hanging inertly down in the 
 dark. 
 
 The result of this cogitation sent me farther 
 up the hall to another door, and as I worked I 
 silently apostrophized the inmate : 
 
 " You 're very nice and very plausible and I 
 hope you 're true, but I can take no chances. 
 And I may be ' wonderful ' but I 'm sure that 
 ever so many girls have found you handsome. 
 You are, you know." 
 
 The Filipino occupied a cot in his master's 
 room. The children w r ere obviously not to be 
 considered. My w r ork was done for that night. 
 
 Only when I slid between the cold sheets and 
 lay shivering in the dark did the reaction come. 
 But through the nervous trembling a gleam of 
 humor persisted, — a gleam of humor and self- 
 congratulation. Whoever should leave his room 
 to prowl about the house in the night would un- 
 wittingly betray himself. The mystery of the 
 threatening notes was about to be solved. 
 
 " With many thanks to Mr. Balzac," I mur- 
 mured sleepily to myself as the opiate warmth of 
 the bed stole over me, " though he did not employ 
 anything so plebeian as gum ! " and my last lin- 
 gering of consciousness was a mental picture of 
 the high-windowed college library, where I had 
 pored over the works of the great Frenchman. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 
 
 THE muffled clamor of the alarm clock, 
 placed beneath my pillow that it might not 
 rouse the entire household, woke me the next 
 morning. For a moment I lay staring in per- 
 plexity at the early light that filled the squares 
 of windows, then remembrance swooped upon 
 me; the fantastic happenings of the night before 
 were recalled, curiosity rose a-tiptoe as to what 
 my shrewdness had netted me this morning. 
 
 I dressed hurriedly in the cold dampness flood- 
 ing the room and quietly let myself out into the 
 hall I had haunted so assiduously last night. It 
 was still shadowy this morning, save where the 
 high window in the bend of the staircase at each 
 end slanted a pale rectangle on the floor. The 
 rows of doors blankly closed on each other. 
 
 My eyes leaped ahead of my cautious feet and 
 sought the dim white patch before Miss Hal- 
 dayne's door. It was unmarred. 
 
 Apparently no threatening note had been left 
 last night. Curiously enough, there was disap- 
 
 153 
 
154 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 pointment mingled with my relief. To scan the 
 hair-sealed doors was only a form now. I did it 
 perfunctorily, not surprised to find them undis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Beturning to my own room for paper and a 
 whisk-broom, I brushed up the flour, removing 
 the last traces of it with a towel impressed as a 
 dust-cloth. Then, hearing the alarm-clock ring 
 in Hoang's room, I fled and sat on the edge of the 
 bed while I waited for a more conventional ris- 
 ing-hour. But a grim resolve had formed in my 
 mind, an iron determination to carry out this 
 same program every night until the mystery was 
 run to earth. One of these days there would be 
 a footprint in the flour, sometime a broken hair 
 would unfailingly reveal who had opened his 
 door in the hush of the night. Until then my 
 Scotch tenacity could afford to wait. 
 
 Eestlessness drove me to the breakfast-room 
 before the others this morning. There was the 
 usual taciturn nod from Hoang, who continued 
 to shuffle between breakfast-room and kitchen as 
 he set the table. To avoid his almost contemptu- 
 ous disregard I moved to the window and stood 
 quietly between their curtains, my eyes plunging 
 through the stout wire mesh to the undulating 
 sand-dunes and the tumbling ocean beyond. 
 
 The fog had not entirely lifted. The whole 
 scene swam in half -opaque light with the milky 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 155 
 
 whiteness of an opal. The faint rose of the ris- 
 ing sun, only half dreamed of as yet, was the fire 
 in the heart of the jewel. The sea was an in- 
 definite moving mass out there in the fog, slowly 
 lifting and settling like a restless ghost. A faint 
 wind went scurrying through the bunch-grass, 
 blowing from no apparent direction, turning aim- 
 lessly upon itself, whisking back as though 
 around invisible corners, blowing little sand 
 eddies before it, shaking the lupines in a half- 
 hearted way, as though it were searching for 
 something, something about which it was not 
 very clear in its own mind. 
 
 I felt a sympathy for that bewildered morning 
 breeze. Into it I read my own aimless turnings 
 and gropings, my half-directed searchings for a 
 solution about which I could only wildly con- 
 jecture. The pat words of the Old Tentmaker 
 stirred in my mind and my lips formed them 
 noiselessly, my eyes still on the aimless trail in 
 the nodding lupines : 
 
 . . . like wind along the waste 
 
 I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing. 
 
 I was playing with the thought when the un- 
 mistakable sense of some one's eyes upon me 
 stung my brain to alertness and I wheeled to find 
 the Chinaman regarding me unwinkingly a few 
 feet away. 
 
156 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 His eyes were not on my face, but there was no 
 mistaking the black venom which glittered in 
 them. Instinctively I followed his gaze. It led 
 to the faint white trace on my blue-serge skirt 
 where last night the flour had trickled down it. 
 I must have made a guilty movement, a start, or 
 a half-formed gesture to hide it with my hand, 
 for he spoke, though his eyes did not waver from 
 the white stain. . 
 
 " Missy Belmont get flour? This morning I 
 find flour on kitchen floor." 
 
 Indignation at my ow T n carelessness and a 
 touch of that fright Hoang could ever inspire in 
 me, caused my voice to shake a trifle as I an- 
 swered this in a carefully careless tone: 
 
 " Yes, last night I got some flour for a mus- 
 tard-plaster. I may have spilt a little on the 
 floor. I really did n't notice in the dark." 
 
 The Chinese eyes crept up and up. They 
 seemed to have weight like other crawling things ; 
 it was an eternity before they reached my own 
 rigidly composed gaze. In the direct light from 
 the window they scintillated like two black 
 beads; two beads held stationary between the 
 double folds of flesh which formed the lids. I 
 found myself noticing them with an attention to 
 detail which afterward amazed me. Hoang's 
 eyes were not oblique ; no Chinaman's are. It is 
 the inability to open them in the inner corners as 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 157 
 
 wide as can the Western races which lends that 
 delusion. 
 
 For a heart-stopping moment my gaze plunged 
 miles deep into those glittering black irises. It 
 was much like looking into a dark well to the 
 half-dreamed-of shimmer of water somewhere far 
 down in the depths. The black venom was ooz- 
 ing up to meet me; I felt cold, felt my face 
 settling into a rigid mask. " I 'm being hypno- 
 tized ! " flashed across my tottering mind. The 
 thought pried me from the horrid lethargy, my 
 eyes could not wrench away, but I felt my 
 thoughts fluttering backward as a bird flutters 
 before the gaze of a snake. 
 
 As though he sensed the mental resistance, 
 something seemed to close beneath the surface of 
 the black irises as a camera shutter closes. The 
 terrible weight of his eyes lifted, the voice came, 
 a soft hissing, pregnant with hidden meaning. 
 
 " Missy Belmont, I think you not walk around 
 house at night. Not good; you stay in room at 
 night, I think so." 
 
 That was all, Hoang had gone, shuffling back 
 to the kitchen through the little pass pantry, a 
 model of silent docility, an irreproachable Chi- 
 nese servant in immaculate white linen. 
 
 Feet descended the hall stairs, the capable 
 swish of starched percale filled the air, and Miss 
 Haldayne entered the room. For the moment 
 
158 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the familiar bustle of her movements deceived 
 me ; nor did her preoccupied " good morning " 
 mean anything to my upset mind. 
 
 She crossed to the old black walnut china- 
 closet and began to rearrange the cups and sau- 
 cers, breaking their orderly files only to push 
 them again to the same rigid formation. The 
 aimlessness of this finally penetrated my ab- 
 straction when a cup almost crashed to the floor. 
 I raised my eyes to her half-averted face and a 
 low exclamation of alarm was jerked from me. 
 That face was bleak and gray with fright. 
 
 At the noise she wheeled nervously, her 
 startled eyes leaped to mine and clung there 
 wretchedly. Then her head inclined stiffly, 
 grudgingly, as a tough-fibered eucalyptus might 
 give before the wind. Her voice was tense: 
 "Another, this morning, Ann. Every morning 
 now. Ann, I had to tell you ! " 
 
 A cold stupefaction overs wept me. For the 
 moment I could only stare back and gasp. 
 
 "Why — why — " Speech was tripped up. 
 " Why, Miss Haldayne — it can't be." 
 
 She missed the betrayal in my words and 
 sensed only the contradiction. The now hor- 
 ridly familiar paper was extended. " Eead it," 
 she commanded with something of the old com- 
 mand. 
 
 I had to send my eyes over it twice before I 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWEKS 159 
 
 grasped the sense, of those sprawling, childish 
 characters. 
 
 And it's so useless. All things have an end. That 
 Which Cannot Be Hid! You know it and all your stub- 
 bornness — 
 
 My eyes jerked up to meet the wretchedness 
 of her intent black gaze. I was dazed, my tongue 
 thick with amazement. All I could manage was 
 to stammer stupidly : " Why, they could n't get 
 in ! They could n't! " 
 
 " Seems they did," she said dryly, and I saw 
 the muscles of her strong throat contract. She 
 suddenly snatched the slip of paper from my 
 nerveless fingers. " The children are coming. 
 Not a word to any one, Ann ! " 
 
 Whijie I preten'ded to eat my oatmeal my 
 dammed-up thoughts suddenly broke through the 
 stupefaction which had retained them and 
 flooded my brain with wildest conjecture. 
 Something — something apparently which could 
 walk through bolted doors and wire-meshed win- 
 dows — was abroad, roaming at will after dark 
 through the echoing great rooms and up and 
 down the creaking staircases. I gave such a 
 violent shudder that Miss Drusilla looked up 
 inquiringly from sugaring her coffee, and I ad- 
 dressed a hurried remark to Harry to avoid her 
 comment. 
 
160 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 What was it that could hide from four people 
 — six, when the pseudo invalid and his at- 
 tendant were taken into account? What was it 
 that could gain entrance to an apparently en- 
 tranceless room and leave no telltale footprint? 
 Could it see in the dark like a cat and thus avoid 
 stepping on the betraying flour? Had it watched 
 me through the night? Had its unwinking eyes 
 been fastened on me as I toiled down the creak- 
 ing stairs to the kitchen, watching while I scat- 
 tered the flour later, brave in the fooPs security 
 that I was alone? The thought was so gruesome 
 that it brought its own reaction. I set my mind 
 on a more wholesome track. 
 
 Whatever it was, it was human. The child- 
 ishness of the handwriting was a ruse. The note 
 was clever in its wording, its very vagueness 
 more tormenting than a direct threat would be. 
 It held the half-childish taunt that I had more 
 than once detected Miss Drusilla directing to- 
 ward her sister. 
 
 Miss Drusilla! 
 
 I slyly turned my head and surveyed her with 
 new eyes. She was placidly stirring her coffee, 
 a pile of thickly buttered toast before her. Was 
 it possible that the clumsy coquetry of her de- 
 meanor hid an alert vindictiveness? that a mis- 
 chievous brain lay beneath the drab masses of 
 her light hair? that her china blue eyes could 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 161 
 
 narrow speculatively, could plan this means of 
 refined torture for the sister she so disliked? 
 But, even granting that she was the means, how 
 could she get into the room? 
 
 On the other hand, there were those last words 
 of Hoang's, words that thinly veiled a threat. 
 Why was I not to walk about the house at night 
 if it was not to avoid meeting the mysterious 
 writer? The remark betrayed a guilty knowl- 
 edge on Hoang's part, but if Miss Drusilla was 
 the perpetrator, why should he seek to shield 
 her? There was ever-spiteful dislike in her atti- 
 tude toward the Chinaman, a disdainful stolidity 
 in his bearing toward her. Imagination could 
 not stretch to conceive of a possible bond between 
 the two. 
 
 An annoyed glance at my untouched porridge- 
 bowl from Miss Haldayne relegated these 
 thoughts to the background of my mind. The 
 peculiar woman had recovered her poise to a cer- 
 tain extent, though her face remained strained 
 and grayish and her eyes were haunted. 
 
 At the end of her meal she abruptly pushed 
 back her chair and bolted into the hall as she 
 had on that former occasion, as though fearful 
 that the tabooed subject might arise between us, 
 while I slowly trailed Miss Drusilla and her 
 creaking corsets from the room. 
 
 That morning, when I took the children for 
 
162 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the daily scamper on the beach, I turned as I 
 reached the foot of the shallow steps and scanned 
 the windows of Miss Haldayne's room above me. 
 Twenty feet from the ground though they were, 
 I could easily see the stout rusty nails which held 
 the heavy mesh to the window frame. Certainly 
 the mysterious prowler had not entered here. 
 
 Half-way through the geography lesson, the 
 last subject in our little curriculum, I heard the 
 rhythmic squeak of the invalid chair being 
 wheeled to the veranda. For no apparent rea- 
 son, and much to my own inward disgust, I felt 
 my cheeks burning. This interest in a man I had 
 really seen but once set me to jeering at myself. 
 Almost vindictively I sent Joan stumbling on an 
 oral tour through the capitals of the United 
 States, in a vain attempt to smother my disturb- 
 ing thoughts. In my zeal I overran the study 
 period and was recalled to myself only by two 
 pairs of round eyes fixed on me in mute reproach. 
 
 Joan now reminded me of a doll-hat I had 
 rashly promised to make this afternoon and a 
 few minutes later our little procession passed 
 along the hall toward the veranda, Harry lead- 
 ing the way, his short arms filled with blocks 
 rather precariously balanced; Joan toting the 
 life-sized doll, and lastly myself laden with the 
 makings of diminutive millinery, my face set in 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 163 
 
 what I hoped was placid self-possession but what 
 was doubtless a guilty rigidity. 
 
 The man in the chair stirred as our little 
 parade clattered noisily out upon the wooden 
 veranda and his head turned in our direction. 
 The movement was so unconsciously appealing, 
 when taken in connection with the legs patheti- 
 cally stretched before him, that I had a weird 
 sense of the unreality of it all. Was it possible 
 that the pathetic dark glasses hid a pair of 
 brightest and steadiest hazel eyes, — eyes which 
 were no doubt scanning our faces even now and 
 reading our innermost thoughts? Had those 
 helpless legs crept downstairs in the dark last 
 night, moving with the silence and sureness of 
 a leopard? His disguise was complete. Truly, 
 George Rogers Haldayne was a valuable ally — 
 a formidable antagonist. 
 
 With a most casual " good morning," I sat 
 down in a wooden rocker near by and embarked 
 on my millinery expedition while the youngsters 
 danced about us like irrepressible ripples. 
 
 The red promise of the sun that morning had 
 turned into a weak saffron radiance which cov- 
 ered the distant sand-dunes with a thin wash of 
 gold. No wind stirred among the sad green 
 clumps of bunch-grass, sea-gulls high aloft in the 
 calm day glistened like silver scales suspended 
 
164 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 in the sky. The sun splashed across the worn 
 gray boards of the porch, picking out russet 
 glows in Joan's seal-brown hair, surrounding, 
 with a light-touched halo, the recumbent head of 
 the man. In an hour or so the ocean wind would 
 again be sweeping bleakly over this stretch of 
 sand, driving the afternoon fog before it ; the tide 
 would have deserted the dreary little stretch of 
 beach, leaving it brown and naked in the murder- 
 ous clutch of kelp; the brief golden radiance 
 would have faded to a sad gray light; but for 
 these two precious hours in the heart of the day 
 Dune House held a dreary beauty. 
 
 I sensed the man's impatience until I had tact- 
 fully decoyed the children to a play-place out of 
 earshot. He burst out almost immediately: 
 
 " Miss Belmont, this thing has me worried. I 
 have n't a thing to go on but that vague fear in 
 Florence's letter. Nothing definite has hap- 
 pened in the house that I can discover, but I feel 
 it all about me — an unpleasant mystery. It 's 
 there, as real and as elusive as — cobwebs ! " 
 
 His tone was impatient, yet carefully modu- 
 lated that it would reach no farther than my own 
 ears. He continued, checking a too-impetuous 
 motion of his hand : 
 
 " Aunt Eliza 's worried, worried stiff, about 
 something. She's a tremendously nervous 
 woman, despite that magnificent self-control 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 165 
 
 she ? s acquired. She 's afraid, Miss Belmont. 
 Now what the dickens is she afraid of? " 
 
 He paused, but I bent quietly over my sewing 
 and did not speak. A wave or two rolled in to 
 break the silence before he began again : 
 
 " Aunt Drusilla 's spiteful. I ? ve heard her 
 taunt her sister — little slighting remarks about 
 lack of personal beauty. You 've heard her too, 
 no doubt. I wonder if that has any bearing on 
 it? Drusilla must have something on her. 
 There 's an old grievance there, still festering. 
 They love each other like two strange cats, but 
 that would n't account for that haunted look in 
 Aunt Eliza's eyes." A frown suddenly knit his 
 forehead. " Why don't you say something? " he 
 inquired almost petulantly. 
 
 I looked up at this, my eyes innocent. " I 
 haven't anything to contribute. I sense the 
 same thing you do. There 's something wrong 
 here at Dune House, — I 've felt that from the 
 start, — but I can't make it out." 
 
 He suddenly chuckled. " Scotch canniness ! 
 Do all Presbyterians beseech the Lord to set a 
 watch on their lips by day? " 
 
 I flushed at the astuteness of his suspicions. 
 Within me a fierce debate was raging as to 
 whether or not I should take this man into my 
 confidence. His story last night was fantastic, 
 but it rang true. It entirely agreed with the 
 
166 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 brief history I had had of him through Miss Dru- 
 silla; yet something — he had called it Scotch 
 canniness, — checked the impulse to confession. 
 
 " There is an explanation," I told myself 
 grimly. " There 's no such thing as supernatural 
 beings prowling about a house to leave mysterious 
 notes in their wake." The trap could n't have 
 been complete. There was a loophole of escape. 
 The hair on the doors had proved that they had 
 not been opened once I had sealed them, but there 
 was a chance that the note had been left while I 
 was prowling below in the dark kitchen. Then 
 again — this thought rushed upon me, turning 
 me cold to the tips of my toes, — every door had 
 not been sealed. There was the door to Joan's 
 " Bluebeard Chamber " ! 
 
 These were two possibilities, even probabilities, 
 always ignoring the bothering fact of the un- 
 marred flour. 
 
 George Eogers Haldayne apparently knew 
 nothing of the threatening notes, some of which 
 had come before his arrival. He might even be 
 able to make a guess at their origin, but that in- 
 bred caution of mine held back the mention of 
 them. 
 
 In my reply I ignored the raillery of his last 
 remark: " Joan told you of the secret room? " 
 
 " The Bluebeard Chamber, yes. What do you 
 know of it, Miss Belmont? " 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 167 
 
 " Only as much as you do. Except — once I 
 ran down the wrong flight of stairs by mistake. 
 When I first came here, you know. I thought I 
 was at the door of the little sitting-room, but as 
 I took hold of the knob I heard Miss Drusilla 
 cry out in alarm. She was sorting sheets in 
 the downstairs linen-closet. She told me never 
 to go in there; that Miss Haldayne would be very 
 much annoyed. She said no one ever went there 
 save Miss Haldayne. There w r as no concealment 
 of the fact that she was very much frightened." 
 
 " But you never looked in the room ? " 
 
 " It ? s locked. The shutters are closed. One 
 can't see through the keyhole." 
 
 He laughed at the naivete of this and I joined 
 him at my own expense. " I was going to climb 
 a ladder and look through a missing slat of the 
 shutter, the day you came." 
 
 " I saw you." He chuckled again. " You 
 looked so slim and helpless on that ladder — and 
 so scared! — like a little ruffled sparrow cling- 
 ing to an uncomfortable perch." 
 
 His tone held again the half-laughing note of 
 admiration of last night. My silly heart skipped 
 a beat, but my voice grew severe : " Our mystery 
 leads us nowhere, apparently." 
 
 "Kebuked!" 
 
 I looked up with all the cold dignity I could 
 command, then quickly lowered my head over my 
 
168 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 sewing again. The dark glasses were turned full 
 in my direction ; I could imagine the teasing light 
 in the hazel eyes behind them. 
 
 " There 's something wonderfully attractive 
 about sparrows, don't you think so, Miss Bel- 
 mont ?" 
 
 A flirtation with the governess relieves bore- 
 dom when there is nothing more attractive to do. 
 I reminded myself of this sharply and my reply 
 came with casual tartness : 
 
 "Hardly. Nasty, disagreeable little things, 
 I think. ? ' 
 
 I could feel the delighted twinkle of those 
 hidden eyes. " Maybe you 're right," with mock 
 deliberation, and his lips twitched. 
 
 I kept my countenance, but I hated myself for 
 the red tide I could feel pushing its way into my 
 face, and I was grateful for the dark glasses 
 which must have covered my confusion. My 
 work was examined with the squinted eye of a 
 connoisseur, then with regained self-possession 
 I inquired, " What do you think can be in the 
 secret room? Do you think that would have 
 any bearing on the mystery? " 
 
 " It 's probably an empty room like those bed- 
 rooms upstairs. Perhaps Aunt Eliza stores 
 trunks in it. A youngster can make a mystery 
 out of any dark hole, and Joan's choice of books 
 has been rather lurid, I 've discovered." 
 
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS 169 
 
 I nodded gravely. "I've thought the same 
 thing — then again — well, I '11 be happier when 
 I know what 's in it and if those shutters are 
 closed merely to keep the carpet from fading." 
 
 There was another silence, broken only by the 
 surge of the sea and the happy quarreling of the 
 children in the corner. Again I fought down 
 the impulse to give this man my confidence, to 
 relate the mystery of the notes, to speak of the 
 Chinaman hidden up the gully, of the death-howl 
 in the night and the dancing lights far out on 
 the dunes. Once the impulse to tell of the trap 
 I had so cleverly set and which had been more 
 cleverly evaded, nearly grew to words, then that 
 wise old Scotch saw stirred in my cautious mind : 
 " Tell na'body ; that lessens suspicion by one." 
 
 He finally broke the silence by saying slowly : 
 " I don't see why, but I can't rid myself of a dis- 
 like for Hoang. He 's so taciturn ; there 's some- 
 thing about him — something — " 
 
 " Kitty-catty ! " I put in whole-heartedly as he 
 hesitated. " He 's always behind you when you 
 least expect it. He knew I was downstairs last 
 night, by the flour on the kitchen floor. No, no," 
 at his look of alarm, " he does n't suspect you, 
 I 'm sure. But he told me it was not good to 
 wander about the house in the dark. His words 
 were almost a threat, Mr. Haldayne. Yet I 'm 
 sure he does n't leave his room at night — " I 
 
170 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 stopped short, confused at my unconscious be- 
 trayal. 
 
 Again came the desire to confide in the man 
 and again I resolutely fought it down. For in 
 the back of my brain a stern impulse was stir- 
 ring. Somewhere there must have been a flaw in 
 my reasoning. The mysterious intruder may 
 have entered Miss Haldayne's room before I had 
 set my floury trap, before I sealed the doors with 
 the hair. To-night I would try my luck again, 
 to-night the telltale flour would be sprinkled in 
 the hall once more, and all the doors — even the 
 door of the secret room — should be sealed before 
 I went to bed. 
 
 Nor did I foresee that the next day would find 
 me sorely perplexed and frightened, turning to 
 this man as an ally. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 
 
 SURF and wind and rising tide, — ever since 
 that combination has been sufficient to flash 
 me back to that September day on the weather- 
 beaten veranda at Dune House, where, alert and 
 tense beneath his mock invalid wrappings, 
 George Rogers Haldayne listened to my low 
 frightened voice. 
 
 What a contrast this, from the day that had 
 gone before! Then I had been still skeptical, 
 ridiculously self-sufficient. Now I poured out 
 my heart, revealing all of its troubled and chaotic 
 information. 
 
 George Rogers learned of the locked door on 
 my first night at Dune House; of the silent vigil 
 I had kept over the sand-dunes through that long 
 warm day. He learned of the mysterious notes, 
 of the Chinaman hidden in the little gully; of 
 the terrible night of the death-howl and the danc- 
 ing lights; he learned of everything, even of the 
 real use to which I had put the flour and the man- 
 ner in which I had sealed the bedroom doors. 
 
 171 
 
172 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 At this point he interrupted my low, rapid 
 recital with a sharp exclamation of admiration : 
 
 " Good Lord, you 're a marvelous girl ! I knew 
 it the minute I first saw those quiet, bright 
 eyes of yours. That 's wonderfully clever, you 
 know ! " 
 
 " Balzac did it first," I disclaimed briefly. 
 
 " But there 's not another girl in the world 
 who would have thought of it ! You spunky lit- 
 tle thing!" 
 
 The compliment spattered off of me as a spar- 
 row spatters water. I continued a little impa- 
 tiently, my voice sinking even lower. Every 
 now and again I glanced nervously over my 
 shoulder at the expanse of sun-flooded vacant 
 porch which lay between us and the opened 
 French window. 
 
 " Last night I waited until the house had set- 
 tled to quietude. Hoang came upstairs the last 
 of all, after he had blown out the lamps in the 
 lower hall. I saw the yellow light from the lamp 
 he carried, through the crack at the base of my 
 door. Then it went out in darkness as he closed 
 his door and everything was still. I had saved 
 the flour I swept, up that morning and when per- 
 haps half an hour or so had gone by I slipped out 
 into the hall and scattered it before Miss Hal- 
 dayne's door. Then I sealed the doors of the 
 rooms." I neglected to tell him that he had been 
 
THE FOOTPEINT IN THE FLOUR 173 
 
 included in this attention and continued hastily, 
 " Eight after dinner I 'd sealed the door of the 
 secret room." 
 
 Here I shivered, despite the sun on my back, 
 and then glared at the man as though he was to 
 blame for this betrayal of weakness. " Nothing 
 happened while I was sealing it ! " I said almost 
 defiantly. 
 
 " I 'm unarmed ! " he said in mock alarm. 
 
 I scowled at this levity and continued : " I 
 woke early the next morning — I'd put the 
 alarm-clock under my pillow you know. No one 
 else was awake at that hour. I heard the clock 
 downstairs in the sitting-room strike five when I 
 crept into the hall. Mr. Haldayne, there was a 
 footprint in the flour." 
 
 The man before me started and in his agita- 
 tion shoved his dark glasses up on his forehead, 
 the bright hazel eyes plunging into mine for a 
 startled moment before he remembered his role 
 and jerked them down again. 
 
 I swept on before the startled ejaculation I 
 could see forming on his lips. " A flat, shape- 
 less imprint ; it was not made by a bare foot nor 
 by the conventional shoe with a heel. It might 
 have been a stockinged foot," I finished doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 " Go on ! Whose — " The man's voice was 
 hoarse with suspense. I felt that, behind the 
 
174 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 glasses, his eyes were held by mine in an almost 
 hypnotic spell. My own voice came more quietly 
 now. 
 
 " There was n't a door that had been opened, 
 Mr. Haldayne. I made sure of them all. Even 
 on the door of the secret room the hair was un- 
 disturbed." 
 
 The young man's forehead suddenly creased 
 with perplexity. " Good Lord ! " and his tone 
 was a peculiar mixture of testiness and amaze- 
 ment. " Who else is in the house — and how do 
 they get in ! I ? d suspect Hoang was admitting 
 some one at night after every one retired, some 
 enemy of Aunt Eliza, but you say the seal on his 
 door was intact." 
 
 " Wait," I advised quietly. " There 's more to 
 my story. I stood in the dim hall and stared at 
 that patch of whiteness until it was imprinted 
 indelibly on my mind. There was this large, 
 shapeless print ; and, Mr. Haldayne, it led out of 
 the room." 
 
 I heard him gasp at that and I continued in a 
 rapid voice: 
 
 " There were faint traces of flour leading down 
 the hall. Near the top of the stairs they died 
 out, showing that — something — went down the 
 stairs in the dark. I went back to the patch 
 and looked again. There was a fainter imprint 
 near the outer edge leading into the room. 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 175 
 
 " I heard the alarm-clock ring in Hoang's room 
 then, and I hurried back to my own for the paper 
 and whisk-broom. After I 'd removed the flour 
 I locked my door and waited for the usual hour 
 of going downstairs. I tried to reason it out. I 
 remembered that Hoang was the last to retire 
 every night. I thought, as you did, that he 
 might be admitting some one to the house ; some 
 one who lies hidden in the sand-dunes by day." 
 
 A vision of the Chinese face I had seen 
 screened by the lupines flashed before me and 
 involuntarily I shivered. The man's hand sud- 
 denly covered mine at the action and the warm, 
 compelling feel of those long fingers sent a thrill 
 tingling up my arm before I snatched my hand 
 away, my cheeks crimsoning, to my helpless an- 
 noyance. 
 
 My tone was shaky as I continued : " I went 
 down to the dining-room shortly after I heard 
 Miss Haldayne's door open. Miss Drusilla is 
 generally late for breakfast and I knew the chil- 
 dren would n't be down for several minutes. She 
 looked up as I came into the room — Miss Hal- 
 dayne. Hoang was in the kitchen. She looked 
 up and her eyes — Mr. Haldayne, they were life- 
 less! Glazed, hopeless, — eyes that can't be de- 
 scribed. She looked like one in a trance. Her 
 face was drawn and gray — she 's grown so much 
 thinner and older in these last weeks! Her 
 
176 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 voice was almost a whisper; it seemed choked. 
 I must have cried out or stared very hard, for 
 she nodded twice before her words came. 
 
 " * Again, this morning, Ann. Another — and, 
 Ann, they came downstairs ! ' 
 
 " For the moment I thought that she had 
 noticed the traces of flour on the hallway and my 
 heart jumped guiltily, but before I could speak 
 she went on: 
 
 " * The heavy curtain before the bay-window 
 was pulled aside. Pulled aside, Ann, so they 
 could look out on the dunes ! ' 
 
 ? I 'm sure I cried out at that. The thought 
 of — Something, pressing its face to the closed 
 windows, peering out into the night, was horrify- 
 ing. 
 
 "Miss Haldayne continued huddled there — 
 huddled is the only word. Her big frame was 
 sunk in the carpet-lined rocker, her eyes fixed so 
 helplessly, so heavily on mine. 
 
 " When I could I spoke. * Where 's the note? ' 
 I asked. 
 
 " Her eyes shifted at this. ' I tore it up. I 
 destroyed it in anger.' I knew this was a lie. 
 Undoubtedly there was something in the note, 
 something more definite than anything that had 
 been written so far, something she didn't want 
 me to see. 
 
 " ' Ann ! 9 and her voice was a low wail. 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 177 
 
 ' What shall I do, Ann? How in God's name do 
 they get in?' 
 
 " I was about to tell her, Mr. Haldayne, of our 
 suspicions of Hoang, though she probably 
 would n't have listened, but just then we heard 
 Miss Drusilla creaking down the stairs and that 
 brought Miss Haldayne to her feet. She was 
 nervous and rigid with the effort of pulling her- 
 self together, her fingers gripped my upper arm 
 until they left bruises. 
 
 " ' Not a word ! Not a word about this, Ann ! 
 They must n't know. Ann, I 'm relying on 
 you! ' 
 
 " She released me then and abruptly darted 
 into the kitchen as Miss Drusilla squeezed 
 through the hall door. Almost as abruptly I 
 squeezed past with some mumbled excuse about 
 a headache. 
 
 " It seems cowardly, deserting Miss Haldayne 
 when she needed me, but I couldn't go on 
 placidly eating oatmeal when my ears were ring- 
 ing and my heart pounding. I couldn't, Mr. 
 Haldayne ! " 
 
 I found that I was pleading for the man's 
 understanding and I was not disappointed. " Of 
 course you couldn't," came decidedly. Again 
 his hand gripped mine and this time I clung 
 back for a moment before I gently drew away. 
 
 I gulped, and continued. "When I got up- 
 
178 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 stairs I went directly to Miss Haldayne's room. 
 I felt that I must find some clew to this perpetual 
 mystery. It was beginning to prey on my nerves. 
 I tried to reason logically. Two things alone 
 could happen, I told myself; either Hoang lets 
 some one in at night after the rest of the house 
 has gone to bed, some one who has a key to Miss 
 Haldayne's room ; or — don't think I ? m melo- 
 dramatic, but only this could be the solution, — 
 some one is in the house all the time and gets 
 into her room by some secret means. 
 
 " I recalled the old manor-houses of England 
 and Scotland, with their secret passages, their 
 hidden rooms, their priest-holes opening through 
 fireplaces and swinging flagstones. But the 
 walls here were smooth, unbroken plaster. I 
 told myself then that there must be a trap-door ; 
 I was desperate, you see. There is a large rag 
 carpet in Miss Haldayne's room. It 's not nailed 
 down. I was down on my hands and knees, roll- 
 ing it up from under the legs of the bed, when I 
 suddenly noticed something. In this position 
 my eyes were on a level with things on the floor. 
 I got an angle on them that was lost when I stood 
 erect. Miss Haldayne's bedroom slippers were 
 placed primly side by side near the head of the 
 bed, by the mopboard. They are shapeless af- 
 fairs with eider-down soles. One had fallen on 
 its side. I picked it up and sat there on my 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 179 
 
 heels staring at the slipper in my hand. It's 
 sole was covered with flour." 
 
 In the brief silence which followed the man be- 
 fore me looked stunned. Even through the dis- 
 guise of the glasses I could see that. When he 
 spoke his voice held a curious hush, as though the 
 vitality had been shocked from it. 
 
 " You mean — Aunt Eliza herself — was 
 prowling about the house? That — that — " 
 He floundered, overcome by the unexpectedness 
 of it. 
 
 " Good Lord ! then she 's deliberately been de- 
 ceiving you! She's running some game on 
 you — " 
 
 I nodded, mutely miserable. Despite her 
 peculiarities I had liked the odd woman. To 
 feel that she had cold-bloodedly worked on my 
 sympathy and credulity ! I could not fathom it. 
 
 " But why — " 
 
 It was the same question I had been asking 
 myself all that day. I flung out my hands help- 
 lessly. " I don't know ! " 
 
 " But why in the world should she seek to 
 deceive you? Do you think she's writing the 
 notes herself? " 
 
 " I don't know, Mr. Haldayne ! " I repeated a 
 trifle impatiently. " Oh, I don't know ! " this 
 last was a cry of anguish as much to myself as 
 to him. " I can't believe it ; she was really 
 
180 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 frightened ; I can tell when a person 's frightened 
 and I tell you she was gray with fear ! v 
 
 " Do you suppose some one else may be using 
 her slippers, to turn suspicion from himself? " he 
 asked next. 
 
 I considered it gravely. It sounded ridic- 
 ulous, but we could not afford to leave any stone 
 unturned for the mere fear for ridicule. 
 
 " I don't know what to suppose," I finally said 
 helplessly. " I ? m all at sea. This was the 
 last thing on earth I expected. Why, Mr. Hal- 
 dayne, she seemed so frightened ! — underneath, 
 you know, as if she held herself from flying into 
 a panic only by exercising that tremendous will 
 of hers. And why? What's to be gained by 
 hoaxing me? " It was my turn to ask the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Aunt Eliza 's a shrewd woman," put in her 
 nephew, slowly. u Maybe she suspects you 're 
 finding out too much. Perhaps she 's trying to 
 scare you away." 
 
 I shook my head. " And yet when I wanted to 
 go, that morning following the death-howl, she 
 was reluctant to have me. There was genuine 
 relief on her face when I said I 'd stay for the 
 children's sake." 
 
 "And look how afraid she is of the dark. 
 That 's not put on. Ever since I 've been here 
 the lights have been lit as soon as daylight fades. 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 181 
 
 Hoang is always the one to put them out. I 've 
 seen her shrink from going into the sitting-room 
 before the light was lit, though it was still day- 
 light. It 's as though she feared that some 
 enemy might be hidden in the shadows." 
 
 "Then to think that she could creep down- 
 stairs in the dead of night, down into the dark 
 front parlor ! And why — " a new thought struck 
 me — " why did she tell me about the curtain 
 over the parlor window being disarranged? Did 
 she suspect that I was prowling through the 
 house at night? " 
 
 " Hoang ! " we both exclaimed at once. I 
 rushed on. " Hoang must have told her about 
 finding the flour on the floor and she is trying to 
 frighten me with the idea that some one is hiding 
 in the house at night." 
 
 For the moment it almost seemed as though 
 we were making progress ; then the other baffling 
 angle of the thing crowded upon me : " But 
 those notes ! If she 's prowling about the house 
 playing ghost, is she writing the notes to deceive 
 me as well? " 
 
 It was his turn to make a hopeless gesture. 
 " I can't see what 's to be gained," he said wear- 
 ily. " It seems such a stupid deception, so aim- 
 less." 
 
 We were both still for a moment. Again came 
 the surge of the sea beating in on the ears ; came 
 
182 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Joan's clear treble while she read a fairy tale 
 aloud to Harry in the angle of the veranda. 
 Somewhere from the depths of the house rose the 
 faint sound of Miss Drusilla's whine to the uni- 
 verse at large regarding some apricot preserves 
 which had gone moldy. 
 
 A memory had visualized itself before my 
 eyes, — the remembrance of Miss Haldayne's 
 gray face that morning as she had raised it to 
 me in the breakfast-room, the eyes glazed, the 
 pupils dilated over half the surface of the iris. 
 Art could never have produced that effect; art 
 has never yet caused skin to shrink with the dry, 
 gray mask of fear. I burst out vehemently : " I 
 don't believe it! There's some other explana- 
 tion, there must be ! Perhaps it 's as you said ; 
 some one may be wearing her slippers to cast 
 suspicion on her." I stopped abruptly and there 
 was a brief silence. Then I said slowly, " Miss 
 Drusilla hates her sister." 
 
 " How could she get into her sister's room 
 without waking her? " very sensibly pointed out 
 the man. 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. It was as good as 
 any other reply. Another long silence passed. 
 The sun had lost its golden tinge. There was 
 more than a hint of the coming trade-winds in 
 the air. It was the man who broke the stillness 
 this time. He spoke slowly, carefully, as one 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 183 
 
 who jumps from one stepping-stone of fact to 
 another. 
 
 "It seems to me, Miss Belmont, that we're 
 going at this wrong. We 're letting a lot of un- 
 related and apparently inexplicable incidents 
 confuse us. We 're trying to deduct a reason 
 from its results. Deduction is futile and foolish ; 
 what we should try is elimination. Trace down 
 these smaller puzzles, eliminate them one by one 
 until we reach the main thread of the mystery. 
 To take a bird's-eye view, as we 've been doing, 
 is to go crazy ! How can we guess at the connec- 
 tion between Miss Drusilla's hatred and the 
 Chinaman hidden in the gully? between the 
 death-howl and the secret door? between the mys- 
 terious notes and the flour on Aunt Eliza's slip- 
 per? Yet there must be some connection; every 
 mystery has a key. We have to find that key. 
 Take Hoang, for instance. He's up to some 
 deviltry! I don't trust him. He knows a lot 
 we 'd like to know, but there 's no sense trying to 
 worm it out of him. No, I 'm afraid that we '11 
 have to mark Hoang with an ' X ' and place 
 him with the other unknown quantities. 
 
 " Miss Drusilla? Hum-m-m. I don't like the 
 idea of our giving her our confidence. I 'm sorry, 
 but my dear aunt strikes me as a doodle- wit, Miss 
 Belmont. This is your mystery and mine and 
 it 's up to us to unravel it. I wish Florence had 
 
184 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 given me some inkling, but she probably did n't 
 know, herself. There 's the most maddening air 
 of vagueness hanging about this house V 9 he 
 burst out. 
 
 There was another silence during which the 
 surf had things all to itself. My stillness ap- 
 peared to nettle the young man. Suddenly he 
 shoved the dark glasses up on his forehead and 
 turned the battery of the hazel eyes on my face. 
 " Say something ! " he commanded irritably. 
 
 I smothered a smile, then as quickly grew 
 grave. 
 
 " Elimination seems the sanest way, as you 
 suggest. Let 's start on the most concrete mys- 
 tery we have. It might act as a key to the rest," 
 I added slowly. " Let 's find out what 's in the 
 secret room." 
 
 " Excellent ! " The pseudo invalid forgot his 
 role and gave his legs an excited hitch. "At 
 least that will lay one wild surmise at rest. Now 
 when — " 
 
 " I can slip down there sometime when Miss 
 Drusilla ? s lying down and Miss Haldayne 's busy 
 in the kitchen. I hate to try while she ? s in the 
 house, but we have to take some risk. Perhaps 
 this afternoon or to-morrow — " 
 
 " Nothing doing ! " He ripped it out curtly. 
 " I ? m not going to have you fooling around that 
 darned room alone." 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 185 
 
 My heart leaped at the authoritative tone, but 
 I managed a scornful laugh. " That 's nonsense, 
 nothing 's going to bite me." 
 
 " I ? m not so sure. Joan's description has 
 rather unpleasantly stirred my imagination. If 
 there are any ' shiny faces ' to be encountered, 
 Miss Belmont, I want to be in front of you with 
 an automatic." 
 
 " Joan 's probably drawing on her inventive 
 powers," I scoffed to offset the pink I could feel 
 rising in my face. 
 
 " Joan did n't invent the Chinaman up the 
 gully, nor the pistol shot and the howl in the 
 night," the man retorted earnestly. " There is 
 danger in this house, Miss Belmont. Promise 
 me you won't attempt it alone." 
 
 " I '11 promise, though it 's silly. You act as 
 though we ' d find some terrible solution, as Jane 
 Eyre did, for instance. I hardly see how that is 
 possible unless you choose to pose as Mr, Roches- 
 ter and have a wife hidden behind the scenery." 
 I tried to be superciliously amused, though his 
 positive tone was a little upsetting. 
 
 " I have n't any wife — yet," he returned dar- 
 ingly, " so we '11 have to dismiss that theory, but 
 I '11 tell you frankly, Miss Belmont, that room 
 has me worried. Look here: I can't risk sneak- 
 ing about the house in the daytime because of 
 this confounded disguise, but at night, when the 
 
186 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 others are in bed — Miss Belmont, to-night! 
 Shall we get into that room to-night? " 
 
 All my lassitude had disappeared now. I 
 knew the spirit of adventure shared. I could 
 feel my cheeks blazing, felt that my eyes were 
 burning to match the excitement of his own. 
 But I managed to speak skeptically: "How? 
 The door 's locked." 
 
 " You don't really suppose I came down here 
 without a skeleton key? If it 's like the locks on 
 the bedroom doors Joan could open it with a hair- 
 pin. Now then, every one's in bed by ten — by 
 eleven, at the latest. W T e '11 wait until eleven- 
 thirty to make sure. Half-past eleven, then 
 count to five hundred for luck ! We '11 meet at 
 the head of the stairs at the farther end of the 
 hall. Or maybe it will be safer for you not to 
 come. I can carry it through alone — " 
 
 " Well, I like that ! When I ? ve been waiting 
 all this time — " I was beginning indignantly 
 when his hand suddenly flashed up and jerked the 
 dark glasses to their proper position again. 
 
 I wheeled on the instant. Hoang stood not far 
 behind us. In his usual kitty-catting way he 
 had stepped to the veranda through the opened 
 French window and approached us from the rear. 
 His eyes were obsequiously fastened on the 
 ground ; he appeared not to have seen those tell- 
 tale glasses shoved high on George Rogers's fore- 
 
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE FLOUR 187 
 
 head, but my heart had turned icy. There was 
 an edge to my voice when I asked him why he 
 was there. 
 
 Hoang's ears were sharp, this I knew. If he 
 had just approached he had probably been un- 
 able to glean a word, but — how long had he 
 been standing there, unsuspected by us? 
 
 The narrow eyes rose slowly to mine. 
 Through their almost stupid docility I thought I 
 glimpsed a mocking devil ; a brazen, defiant devil. 
 
 "Missy Haldayne, she say come, help fix 'em 
 skirt. She down in sitting-room." 
 
 It was true. A few days before I had promised 
 Miss Haldayne to help her hang a skirt that af- 
 ternoon — a process by no means as bloodthirsty 
 as it sounds. There was nothing for it save to 
 rise and follow the soft-stepping Celestial down 
 the porch. Yet as he turned his back my hand 
 was caught and held by strong fingers for a brief 
 moment. Even the dark glasses could not hide 
 the anxiety of hazel eyes that signaled, " Care- 
 ful !" while the silent lips framed, " Remember ! " 
 
CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 IN THE NIGHT 
 
 TO my guilty fancy the old clock in the sit- 
 ting-room appeared to strike eleven-thirty 
 with malevolent clearness. There was a tinge 
 of alarm to its clamor; each cog-wheel seemed 
 hysterically insisting that the household awake 
 and give its attention. It was more a clarion 
 call to arms than an announcement of the hour 
 of rest for Dune House. 
 
 For perhaps two minutes I stood in the dark, 
 resting my forehead against the door-jamb ; then 
 with painful care I slowly turned the knob and 
 let myself out into the hall. 
 
 The moon was honoring us with her presence 
 that night. White pools of light lay in the hol- 
 lowed scoop of the stairs and trembled on the 
 worn floor boards. Through the far window I 
 could see the dunes stretching away intermi- 
 nably, blue-white billows, under the unwinking 
 orb. This, however, was in the front of the 
 house. The back of the hall, the stairs toward 
 
 188 
 
IN THE NIGHT 189 
 
 which I was stealing my way, were draped in 
 plushy blackness. 
 
 It seemed an unending time that I was grop- 
 ing my way blindly along the passage. My 
 tongue was cleaving dryly to the roof of my 
 mouth ; each nerve was stretched painfully tense. 
 
 " Ann ! " 
 
 I more sensed than heard the soft whisper in 
 the darkness. My outstretched fingers brushed 
 something tangible, then they were clasped in 
 George Kogers's firm grip. I had reached the 
 head of the stairs. 
 
 Without communication other than that warm 
 clasp, we continued to steal down the stairs, the 
 man first, automatic drawn; I trailing behind 
 him with the electric torch he had handed me, 
 tightly clutched in my cold, dry hand. 
 
 We passed the gray rectangle of window, 
 stooping low to avoid presenting a silhouette, 
 lest sleepless eyes be watching from the upper 
 hall; made the sharp turn, and felt our way to 
 the lower landing. Here the darkness seemed 
 so thick as to be almost tangible. It lay upon 
 us an unsupportable weight; it w T as brooding, 
 uncanny, a menace as much as a protection. 
 Only our outstretched finger-tips told when we 
 had reached the door of the secret room. George 
 Kogers was in advance. I stopped by bumping 
 into him. 
 
190 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 For a breathless moment we waited, heads 
 atilt toward the stairs overhead, lest a creak of 
 our progress had betrayed us. Unknown to the 
 man one hand of mine remained outstretched, 
 lightly touching his sleeve. The rough feel of 
 the cloth was indescribably comforting when 
 taken in connection with the fact that but a few 
 inches of wood separated us from what Joan had 
 disturbingly described as " something all shiny, 
 like a terrible face." 
 
 The silence was so deep that it rang in our 
 ears. The tide was out; the surge of the water 
 came from very far away, we might have been 
 miles within the earth so far as other evidence to 
 the senses was concerned. 
 
 After what seemed an eternity I felt the man 
 stir ; felt his right hand move toward his pocket ; 
 the other, I knew, still held the automatic. 
 
 " The light," he breathed close to my face. 
 
 The beam which leaped out at the pressure of 
 my finger was uncomfortably bright. As it 
 splashed across the dark shiny wood of the door 
 and came to a wavering focus on the keyhole I 
 had the unpleasant conviction that it attracted 
 myriads of unseen eyes from the dark to watch 
 us. George Rogers's hand came within its arc, 
 grasping the skeleton key, moved toward the 
 knob; then abruptly the light winked out and 
 
IN THE NIGHT 191 
 
 my other hand had shot to his wrist and clung 
 there in silent agony. 
 
 " What? " came his startled whisper. 
 
 For the moment I did not answer, just clung 
 frantically, eyes and ears painfully alert in the 
 blackness. I had to moisten my lips first when 
 I did reply, my words breathed close to his ear : 
 
 " I don't know — for sure. I did n't hear any- 
 thing but — I seemed to feel it ! Hark ! " 
 
 Again that paralyzing interval of silence dur- 
 ing which we remained motionless, every sense 
 strained. Five minutes perhaps went by in this 
 maddening inactivity; five centuries of heart- 
 breaking uncertainty before I drew a long, quiv- 
 ering breath and my hand dropped from that 
 warm, pulsing wrist. 
 
 " It was nothing, I guess." 
 
 I could feel by the sway of his body that the 
 man had turned his head, that it was inclined, 
 listening, to the door behind us. Beyond that 
 door there was no sound. The hall stretched 
 grimly in front of us. 
 
 The light flashed into being once more and 
 directed itself to the keyhole. The skeleton key 
 sought for the lock, found it, then was as 
 abruptly withdrawn with a little rasp that 
 seemed as though it filed across my raw nerves. 
 Again the light winked out, and this time there 
 
192 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 was no exclamation. We had both heard it, — 
 an alien noise somewhere up there in the front of 
 the house. An unexplainable noise; a noise 
 which we knew was never created by wind or 
 wave. 
 
 I found my knuckles painfully crushed in 
 George Rogers's fingers, felt my damp hair stir 
 with his breath as he whispered : " There 's some- 
 one up in the front, I think. I 'm going to have 
 a look." 
 
 With the last word he began cautiously feeling 
 his way forward; I promptly imitating him, my 
 leashed breath not knowing whether to come out 
 in a gasp or be swallowed in a gulp. 
 
 Around the bend in the wall the coal-shoot 
 darkness surrendered to the advance-guard of the 
 moonlight. Things took on a gray tinge. I 
 could see the dark bulk of the man just before 
 me. 
 
 We stopped twice to listen, flattened there 
 against the wall, eyes strained to the menace 
 ahead, ears sharpened by fear, stockinged feet 
 poised to flee whichever way alarm gave the sig- 
 nal. Each time the silence reassured us and we 
 resumed our stealthy stalking through the gray- 
 ness. We passed the dark cavern of the little 
 sitting-room with its door ajar. The thin shaft 
 of an investigating moonbeam suddenly thrust 
 itself through the parlor entrance to tremble on 
 
IN THE NIGHT 193 
 
 the edge of the lowest hall stair. I became 
 aware of an acute surprise that the door should 
 be open at all. Save on cleaning days it was 
 kept religiously closed, a New England custom 
 transplanted bodily to this western dwelling. 
 Then my heart contracted painfully and once 
 more my knuckles were crushed in the man's 
 hand. A slight sound came from the front room, 
 a brushing sound, as of a body passing close to 
 the wall, the thin shaft of moonlight was blotted 
 out for the moment by a shadow. 
 
 I was grateful then for the strong pressure of 
 that hand, for my head reeled, a cold hand rudely 
 gripped my heart. During the next few seconds 
 the moon-dappled hall swam before my sick eyes ; 
 then with a gallant roar the blood pounded back 
 and I was cognizant of my surroundings. 
 
 It was again ominously still in the front room. 
 After what seemed an eon of inactivity I felt my 
 hand released with a reassuring squeeze and my 
 guide moved forward. My feet automatically 
 did the same and moving silently as shadows 
 among shadows we came abreast of the open par- 
 lor door. 
 
 It was very dark in there, and very still. Our 
 eyes, used by now to the thin grayness of the hall, 
 could make nothing of the gloom, beyond where 
 it was cleft by that fitful beam of moonlight, but 
 this we followed up to its source. It sloped 
 
194 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 between the dark velvet window hangings pulled 
 ajar! It sloped over and around a black bulk 
 half draped by the curtain on each side — some 
 one standing back toward us, I felt instinctively, 
 his face flattened to the glass of the locked win- 
 dow where it looked over the moon-flooded sand- 
 dunes. 
 
 The silence was leaden ; I found that I had for- 
 gotten to breathe. I feared that the concentra- 
 tion of our gaze would wheel the peering figure 
 to the spot where we stood, tense, against the 
 hall, yet my eyes were powerless to tear them- 
 selves away. Then the beam of moonlight broad- 
 ened; the figure had turned; the next moment 
 the white light blinked out in blackness as the 
 curtains swung together and through the inky 
 darkness of the parlor we could hear the soft 
 brush of feet on the carpet. 
 
 That fearful inertia would have chained me 
 there to be discovered had not my arm been sud- 
 denly gripped in a warm clasp. I was half car- 
 ried into the ambush of the thick shadows far- 
 ther up the hall, swept along and held in the firm 
 circle of an arm which was all that saved my 
 cowardly knees from giving way beneath me. 
 
 The soft scuffling came louder to our ears, a 
 board squeaked in the hall just outside the par- 
 lor. We could barely make the figure out, — a 
 grayness hardly darker than the grayness which 
 
IN THE NIGHT 195 
 
 surrounded it. Nothing in the whole dim scene 
 appeared to have solidity ; it was all a sea of half- 
 light, and the sound of its surf was the ringing 
 of silence in our ears. 
 
 A small eternity elapsed, then from behind 
 came a low, menacing whir. I started in that 
 protecting embrace, but I did not scream and 
 the next moment a hot wave of relief overflooded 
 the back of my neck, leaving me weak. The 
 grandfather clock in the sitting-room was strik- 
 ing twelve. 
 
 The long strokes died out in the upper reaches 
 of the house, the cog-wheels slipped back into 
 place with a little jar, silence closed over our 
 heads again; then up there in the shadows the 
 gray figure stirred. Came the soft scuffling once 
 more, a stair creaked under a weight, the 
 prowler, whoever it was, was about to make a 
 nocturnal visit to the upper hall. 
 
 I was both relieved and chilled. The arm 
 about me loosened a trifle and we moved forward 
 with one accord. The window in the bend of 
 the stairs would reveal the intruder even as it 
 had once revealed the man who now stood my 
 ally. The moonlight lay in a white pool on the 
 half-way landing, it glanced in high lights off 
 the spindle-shaped balusters and painted the 
 dark duplicate on the lighted square of plaster 
 wall opposite. A portion of the lighted rec- 
 
196 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 tangle was blotted out ; the figure toiling upward 
 paused, back to us, and suddenly flattened its 
 face against the hall window, as it had against 
 the one in the parlor. 
 
 It was a woman. The disheveled hair stood 
 out in wild silhouette about her head. The 
 body was swathed in the voluminous folds of 
 some heavy garment. I felt that I gasped. As 
 if that light sound had penetrated to her, the 
 figure suddenly wheeled and remained tensely 
 poised. The moon sharply illuminated that lis- 
 tening face. The man beside me stiffened and 
 I gasped again. It was Miss Haldayne. But 
 what a Miss Haldayne! Between the rumpled 
 twists of her iron-gray hair her face peered, 
 harshly outlined; the black eyes were wild and 
 watchful. 
 
 For perhaps a moment the three of us held 
 the tableau. The man and I were sick with 
 dread lest those wild black eyes would pierce 
 the shadows of the lower hall and see the white 
 patches of our faces against the plaster wall. 
 The strained expression gradually faded, — we 
 could see this, even in the moon's uncertain light, 
 — then a change more terrible, more inexplicable 
 passed over it. The familiar features took on an 
 expression I had never seen them wear. They lit 
 as though shining by the light of a wild inward 
 glee, an almost ferocious cunning. Gone was the 
 
IN THE NIGHT 197 
 
 iron self-control, the unconscious appeal, or — 
 the expression I liked best to see them assume — 
 the stamp of grim humor I had known. The 
 same features, but how changed! It was as 
 though some diabolical overgrown child had 
 stolen the mask of Eliza Haldayne's plain, effi- 
 cient face. 
 
 The next minute the moonlit area was empty, 
 the figure had been swallowed up in the black- 
 ness of the upper stairs. Terrified surprise kept 
 us chained in the shadows. We heard the creak 
 of the board we had learned to avoid in the upper 
 hall and then, full of meaning to our overstrained 
 ears, the soft introduction of a key in a door 
 lock, recognized more by our nerves than by our 
 hearing. 
 
 " God ! " I heard the whisper of the man be- 
 side me and he tightened his clasp. I found that 
 I had been drawn into his arms,, that the physi- 
 cal contact was full of unutterable relief, that I 
 clung to him frantically, my hair pressed against 
 his cheek while he patted one shoulder reassur- 
 ingly with his free hand. Nor was I at all 
 daunted by the discovery. Conven J# " s had no 
 place that night in that dark house with its nerve- 
 racking mysteries. 
 
 " What does it mean? What can it mean? " 
 I demanded in a frightened whisper. I was 
 dazed by what I had just seen; fancy was darting 
 
198 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 hither and thither in a frenzied attempt to find 
 some explanation. In that brief space I had 
 found time to consider the wild theory that the 
 place harbored a fantastic twin sister of the 
 woman. But reason rejected this. Despite the 
 absence of the usual self-control, despite the 
 abandon in the features of the disheveled figure, 
 it was undoubtedly Miss Haldayne herself. 
 
 The man's whisper was grim when it reached 
 my ears. " I don't know, but by God I 'm going 
 to, to-morrow ! I 'm through with mystery. 
 There ? s going to be a thorough explanation." 
 
 " From Miss Haldayne? " 
 
 I felt his nod in the dark. 
 
 A long moment passed while I could almost see 
 the wild surmises passing through our minds. 
 I finally drew a long, quivering breath. " I can't 
 — seem to believe it ! " My whisper broke. 
 
 His own came very warm and close to my 
 ear. "Poor little girl! You poor little tired, 
 spunky thing ! This confounded house has worn 
 you out." 
 
 This brought me to the realization that he was 
 still patting my shoulder, while his other arm 
 pressed me tightly to him. Common sense began 
 to dictate and I drew away with as much dig- 
 nity as I could summon with shaking fingers 
 tucking up my hair. 
 
 " I don't want to explore the secret room to- 
 
IN THE NIGHT 199 
 
 night ! " I quavered like a scared child, as Joan 
 herself might have done. " I want to go to 
 bed!" 
 
 And indeed the one place I fervently desired to 
 be was in my own room, the bedclothes securely 
 pulled over my head. 
 
 " Ann — listen — dear — " 
 
 His whisper was guarded but intense. It 
 brought a warm glow to my cold cheeks, not un- 
 pleasant after the chill of fear they had known, 
 but I had had enough of emotion that night. 
 Noiselessly I broke from his clasp and darted to 
 the stairs. My foot was on the first one when I 
 stopped, frozen into immobility, my face tilted 
 up to the shadows. On to the patch of moonlit 
 landing slid the figure of Hoang, chin outthrust 
 as he peered down toward me in the gloom. 
 
 I know now that it could only have been a few 
 seconds that I stood there, feeling the blood drain 
 from my almost stilled heart, but it seemed then 
 to be an eternity of torture. It was long enough, 
 in all events, for several things to flash into my 
 over-alert brain. Had Hoang heard the sound 
 of our voices? Had it been that which disturbed 
 him? It was hardly plausible, we had barely 
 heard them ourselves, close as we had stood. 
 Was he prowling about the house on uncanny 
 business of his own, or was our venturesome ex- 
 pedition known to him? If it was, George 
 
200 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Rogers's disguise was completely pierced; still, 
 on the other hand, it might have been that creak 
 upstairs which had wakened him; some slight 
 noise of Miss Haldayne's passing. Then our best 
 plan was to hide. 
 
 I had placed one backthrust arm against 
 George Rogers's chest and by his quick retreat to 
 the shadows near the sitting-room door I knew 
 that he had leaped to the same conclusion. 
 Praying that my moving figure might not be con- 
 spicuous in the surrounding grayness, I was fol- 
 lowing suit, when my heart leaped painfully to 
 action and my knees threatened to give way be- 
 neath me. 
 
 The Chinaman bent still farther forward, I saw 
 the moonlight glitter on the whites of his eyes, 
 narrowed to the merest slips in an effort to con- 
 centrate. His voice floated sibilantly down 
 through the shadows : 
 
 " Missy Belmont — you there? " 
 
 Amid the sick reeling which the moon-splashed 
 hall took on, I tried to keep my head. I could 
 feel the man behind me gather himself as though 
 for a spring and I gave him my most vicious 
 backward thrust. Time enough to spring to the 
 rescue when a rescue was needed. Until then, 
 the sight of a paralytic man walking required 
 more explanations than we felt inclined to make. 
 
 There was nothing more to be gained by con- 
 
IN THE NIGHT 201 
 
 cealment. Hoang must have been very sure of 
 me to call my name. I answered in a voice which 
 wabbled painfully: "Yes, Hoang. Did I wake 
 you?" 
 
 I stepped forward boldly as I said this, aware 
 that the man in the shadows behind me was an 
 unwilling follower of my silent advice. I could 
 picture him, tensely alert, the automatic trained 
 on the unwitting figure of the Oriental on the 
 landing. 
 
 I advanced up the stairs boldly enough, my 
 outward demeanor giving no inkling of my shak- 
 ing limbs; but I was rather at a loss when the 
 Chinaman remained planted squarely across my 
 path. His face and neck projected almost bel- 
 ligerently from the collar of a hastily flung-on 
 coat. The black, sharp shadows made his cheek- 
 bones appear abnormally high; his eyes were 
 glittering slits opening pocket-like in the flat 
 face. 
 
 Their cold venom made me pause quite as 
 much as his form blocking my way. They held 
 my own with a terrible steadiness, as on that 
 morning in the breakfast-room. I felt my hands 
 and feet grow cold; there was an unpleasant 
 singing in my ears as though I had taken too 
 much quinine; the darkness seemed closing in 
 about me with a roar. 
 
 I tore my mind away from the control of his 
 
202 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 as if by a physical effort, felt my thoughts 
 hurl themselves back to the comforting realiza- 
 tion of George Kogers standing behind me with 
 a blessedly real automatic. With this a grateful 
 burst of warmth came over my chilled body ; my 
 heart received a new gush of courage. 
 
 As though sensing the mental resistance the 
 Chinaman capitulated. He spoke in a dull, 
 sulky voice : 
 
 " Why you come down here? " 
 
 " I heard a shutter creaking and I could n't 
 sleep," I lied promptly. The explanation was 
 clumsy, but the only one which came readily. 
 
 Again the black venom of that gaze held me. 
 There had been no wind to-night. His voice was 
 heavy with meaning when it finally came, omi- 
 nously slow. 
 
 " I think no good to walk at night. Once I 
 tell you. Now I tell again. You stay in your 
 room, Missy Belmont, I think so." 
 
 He made a sudden quick movement and my 
 heart fainted within me; but it had only been to 
 move aside on the landing to allow me a grudging 
 foot or two in which to pass. I could feel the 
 hatred of his stare as I did so, his head turning 
 slowly to keep me ever in full view. There was 
 a heart-sickening moment while my skirts 
 brushed his rigid body, then I continued on up 
 the stairs, my back prickling with the disturbing 
 
IN THE NIGHT 203 
 
 knowledge that he had turned and was silently 
 following a few paces behind. 
 
 No further word was spoken; we made our 
 noiseless way up the hall. At his own door 
 Hoang paused, but I knew that he was standing 
 rigid in the dark hall waiting for the click which 
 would tell that I had entered my room. 
 
 The knob did click as I released it and turned 
 the key in the lock, but I remained just on the 
 other side in the same position, my cold wet fore- 
 head pressed against the crack, my ears strained 
 to catch something other than the frightened 
 beating of my own heart. 
 
 It was long after — very long after, indeed, it 
 seemed — that I caught the sound for which I 
 had been waiting. The dream of a hand brushed 
 across the panels of the door, there was the 
 faint release of a lock in the night. George 
 Eogers had reached his own room in safety. 
 And only then did I relax. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH — 
 
 1 AWOKE to a strange feeling of unrest, to an 
 imperative need for haste, for which I was at 
 a loss to account. I lay stupidly blinking at the 
 plaster ceiling until a door banged sharply down- 
 stairs. That told of some one 's presence, 
 though by the light of the fog-filled square of 
 window I judged it to be much earlier than my 
 usual rising-hour. 
 
 That curious sense of alertness continued. 
 The old house seemed uneasy; the very air was 
 electric, pregnant with possibilities. The cor- 
 ners of the room seemed to crowd toward the 
 center. I felt nervous, smothered. Scarcely 
 knowing why, I slipped to the floor and ran to the 
 window. The next moment found me, face and 
 palms flattened against the cold wire mesh, 
 strained eyes staring ahead to the exotic growth 
 sprung by our dreary little beach in the night. 
 
 The fog was lifting, dissipated by the dawn 
 wind. On all sides the water appeared to be 
 steaming, and amid the fog wraiths, now 
 
 204 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 205 
 
 shrouded by their ragged wisps, now half re- 
 vealed as a current of air lifted them for a brief 
 moment, rocked the strangest craft that had ever 
 nosed its way into the dismal little bay. 
 
 Time might have turned back four centuries. 
 The ship was not unlike an old Spanish galleon, 
 jutting high fore and aft. Her one mast had a 
 crazy tilt forward ; an enormous oar extended out 
 at one side, like the lame flipper of a lobster. So 
 high she rode that one looked with each oily 
 swell to see her turn turtle, but always she 
 righted herself, like a piece of cork bobbing on 
 the surface of the water. She did this now, 
 swinging half about with the turn of the tide. 
 The growing wind blew the last obscuring mesh 
 of fog clear and on each side of her bow I saw 
 painted an enormous red eye, glaring inland. 
 
 The sloping beach had sprung a new growth 
 amid its jelly-fish and brown kelp. It fairly 
 swarmed with fantastic creatures, — brown, lithe, 
 half-naked figures scrambling over the dunes on 
 skinny bare legs; squatting on their heels about 
 small crackling fires of driftwood ; a few standing 
 ankle-deep in the little creek seeping through the 
 sand, as they dipped up the water in rusty tins. 
 They raced like monkeys over the wet sand, seem- 
 ingly indifferent to the chill wind which was 
 blowing the bunch-grass. Grouped in jabbering 
 masses, they shaded their eyes and pointed skinny 
 
206 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 forefingers at the great silent house staring 
 blankly back at them. From my high vantage- 
 point they were unpleasantly like a mass of larvae 
 squirming busily in the lap of the dunes. Their 
 shrill voices carried to me in a high singsong on 
 the fitful gusts of wind. 
 
 Never before had I laid eyes on such spawn; 
 yet the high-riding junk behind and the shrilly 
 flung voices served to identify them. They were 
 Chinese, — not the placid Han Ren with which 
 the Pacific coast of this country has grown so 
 familiar, but a type which was almost aboriginal ; 
 undersized, ape-like beings with matted black 
 hair falling in filthy confusion beneath enormous 
 basket hats. 
 
 A million wild conjectures fought in my dazed 
 brain as I pulled my clothes on with shaking 
 hands. Were these the mysterious " They " re- 
 ferred to in the threatening notes? What part 
 did Hoang play in this? Was it for this ship, 
 long expected, that he had been silently slipping 
 downstairs last night, only to confront me in the 
 hall? 
 
 Not stopping to pin up the hair flying in brown 
 confusion about my shoulders, I ran out into the 
 hall. Now indeed I heard the commotion which 
 had caused that uneasiness in my sleep. Hurry- 
 ing steps sounded on the bare boards of the lower 
 hail. Doors banged, a window-shutter was 
 
HEAVEN AND EAKTH 207 
 
 slammed in the rear of the house and its lock 
 screeched into, place. Harry began to cry and, 
 turning to enter the children's room, I came face 
 to face with George Rogers, not disguised this 
 morning as the paralytic invalid but somehow 
 startlingly tall seen upright for the first time 
 in daylight. His eyes were innocent of dark 
 glasses, his mouth was grim, amazingly like his 
 aunt's in that moment. 
 
 He hurried down the hall to me. " You 've 
 seen it? The junk? And those yellow vermin 
 swarming over the beach. Ann, we 're about due 
 for that explanation, I think." 
 
 f* Wait for me, I must quiet the children." I 
 was secretly proud of the calmness of my tone. 
 
 He was reassuringly close as I entered the 
 room. Harry, plastered at the window in his 
 cotton pajamas, gulped down a sob and joined 
 Joan in staring in round-eyed wonder at the 
 amazing sight of their cousin walking, and with- 
 out the dark glasses. For the moment this 
 served completely to overshadow the disturbing 
 sights of the beach below the window. 
 
 I hustled the children into their bath-robes, for 
 the room was cold with dawn, and gave them a 
 few hurried orders as I did so. 
 
 " You 're not to leave this room, neither you 
 nor Harry; Joan, promise me that. We'll be 
 right downstairs, your cousin and I, and we '11 
 
208 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 take care of you the first of all. Promise you 11 
 stay here." 
 
 Between teeth that chattered with fright and 
 chill Joan promised, then quavered : " But, Miss 
 Belmont, why are they there? They 're China- 
 men, are n't they? Why do they look so funny? " 
 
 " I don't know," I answered truthfully enough, 
 shaking small arms into refractory sleeves. 
 " Maybe they just came in to get water. Any- 
 way, there 's nothing to be afraid of, you know." 
 
 Adult company had bolstered Harry's martial 
 spirit. " Ho ! " he gave out belligerently, 
 "I'm not afraid, Joan. Boys aren't afraid, 
 never ! " This in the light of the fat round tears 
 not yet dried on his small cheeks ! " If they 
 come up here I '11 shoot 'em with my pop-gun. 
 Bang!" 
 
 We left the small warrior and his sister, in 
 not unpleasurable excitement watching our 
 weird visitors through a slit in the shutters, and 
 hurried down the stairs, those same stairs up 
 which I had crept trembling a few hours before. 
 
 Midway of the lower hall Miss Haldayne sud- 
 denly swooped out of the dim back parlor and 
 came flying toward us. The faint red light 
 slanting through the side panels of the front door 
 struck full on her advancing figure and uncon- 
 sciously I fell back a step. This was the Miss 
 Haldayne of the night before. Any doubt I may 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 209 
 
 have harbored that it had been her we had seen 
 on the moonlit landing was dissipated. 
 
 Her hair, ever before so rigidly immaculate, 
 stood out in a stiff gray halo about her head, her 
 black eyes were wild — more than that, unseeing. 
 They galloped over my companion without ap- 
 pearing to register the amazing fact of his walk- 
 ing, then came back to me like a steel to the 
 magnet. I felt the absolute panic of the woman. 
 
 " They 've come, Ann ! The notes were right ; 
 they knew, Ann ! They knew ! It could n't be 
 hid. It called and they came. Here ! " 
 
 I recoiled as she suddenly thrust a hand out 
 at me. It held a revolver. 
 
 " Here ! " she repeated with a touch of the old 
 asperity. " There 's Hoang and I for the front 
 of the house. You two guard the side. The 
 back and east ? s safe enough for a time, if we 
 keep 'em bottled up on the beach. Drusilla 's to 
 stay with the children and to keep out from un- 
 der my feet. She's always had the soul of a 
 lizard, I despise her! Let her crawl to cover 
 now ! Here." 
 
 Again the revolver was shaken impatiently, 
 this time in the direction of George Rogers. 
 
 " One moment, Aunt Eliza," the man's voice 
 came with comforting firmness. " We '11 have 
 to know what we 're fighting for before we do it. 
 Ann and I have an explanation coming." 
 
210 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " Ha ! " For the first time she appeared really 
 to see him. Her eyes stared glassily for a mo- 
 ment, appearing to focus with difficulty ; then she 
 gave a short dry laugh. " So you can walk and 
 you 're not blind. That has some meaning, I 
 suppose, or else you are a very personal devil. 
 What 's one more or less, if they 're on our side? 
 It does n't matter if you can shoot. Ann 's here. 
 Ann has brains ! " 
 
 The door of the front parlor suddenly burst 
 open and Hoang appeared in the doorway. 
 
 "Missy Haldayne, come — look, look! They 
 come." His eyes, blazing with excitement, wider 
 than I had ever seen them, fell on our incongru- 
 ous little group. It was the first time I had 
 seen Hoang really betray surprise. As his gaze 
 took in the supposed paralytic, his jaw dropped, 
 a stupefied amazement froze his features. 
 Truly George Rogers's disguise had been 
 effectual. 
 
 Miss Haldayne, unheeding his stupefaction, 
 sprang to the red panel of the front door and 
 pressed her face against it for a moment, wheel- 
 ing almost immediately. 
 
 " The yellow swine ! " She fairly spat it out. 
 " A truce, they want, do they ! I '11 show them ! 
 I '11 truce them ! " She suddenly raised the pis- 
 tol and darted to the front room, aiming through 
 the window. George Rogers, quite as quick, 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 211 
 
 gripped her wrist and the shot rang through the 
 ceiling. 
 
 " Not on a flag of truce ! no, by God ! No mat- 
 ter who carries it ! " he panted as the frantic 
 woman struggled in his arms. 
 
 I stared fearfully through the shutters. 
 
 The scene on the beach had changed with the- 
 atric suddenness. The invaders were gathered 
 in a disordered, ragged group between the creek 
 and the house, yellow faces turned to us, blink- 
 ing black eyes squinting through the growing 
 morning light. The chill wind blew their single 
 garments of blouse and ragged jeans about their 
 skinny bodies and swept the coarse black hair 
 in dirty mats from their shoulders. The only 
 comparison I could make was to a cageful of 
 filthy and amazing apes huddled together, star- 
 ing and chattering in half-hysterical expectation. 
 
 Behind them, an astonishing back-drop, the 
 incongruous junk rode the gray bay, the one red 
 eye visible as the craft swung broadside appear- 
 ing to stare inland with baleful intent. 
 
 Directly before us, advancing along the sandy 
 straggling path with a slow steadiness which 
 was not entirely devoid of a fantastic dignity, 
 came two figures holding aloof a splinter of bam- 
 boo from the top of which floated a rag of dirty 
 white. One was dressed in. the same loose 
 blouse and jeans as adorned the jabbering crew 
 
212 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 in the background. His stature was perhaps 
 half a head taller than his fellows as an average, 
 his head, innocent of the usual basket hat, showed 
 the coarse black hair growing close down on the 
 sloping forehead, where it shaded the small blink- 
 ing eyes and the out jutting lower portion of his 
 face. His was the bearing of a chief, of the cap- 
 tain of the unsavory crew so intently watching 
 him. 
 
 His companion's appearance told that he held 
 a different office of authority. His head was 
 shaved, the undiffused light causing his face to 
 screw itself into a knot in a supreme attempt to 
 shade his unprotected eyes. Instead of blouse 
 and jeans he wore a straight cotton robe of slate 
 gray which fell unbroken in line or color to his 
 bare feet, encased in heavy rope sandals. He 
 was very old; the yellow skin was stretched 
 tightly over skull and cheek-bones ; the neck was 
 a shrunken bunch of shriveled cords seemingly 
 incapable of supporting the weight of the head. 
 As the lips twisted away from the yellow teeth 
 in the effort to concentrate, the effect was dis- 
 turbingly reminiscent of a grinning death's-head. 
 
 As the sound of the shot rang out they paused 
 abruptly, the dirty white rag trembling hesi- 
 tantly aloof. A shrill clamor of alarm had 
 broken out from the huddled groups watching 
 from the creek. 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 213 
 
 George Rogers turned on Hoang, who had 
 swiftly and as silently as ever trailed us to the 
 parlor. 
 
 " Tell them to stop right where they are," he 
 snapped. " Damn it ! I want to find some solid 
 ground here ! " 
 
 There was a tense moment while the Oriental 
 stared defiantly back at the new master who had 
 so determinedly grasped the helm. Rebellion 
 glinted between his narrowed lids, but something 
 in the white man's face finally induced him to 
 turn sullenly, fling back one shutter, and bark 
 out a string of Cantonese. 
 
 The effect of this was to hold the action outside 
 the window suspended. Then George Rogers 
 turned grimly on his aunt. 
 
 " What do they want? " he demanded shortly. 
 
 She tore her eyes from the scene before her 
 with a visible effort and stared at him vacantly 
 for a moment before his words appeared to pen- 
 etrate to her overwrought brain. 
 
 " Something here in the house that they are n't 
 going to get ! " she replied harshly and with 
 something like her old authority. " That which 
 cannot be hid ! Huh ! " Her laugh grated. 
 " There '11 be none to hide it from after to-day. 
 The one who wrote the notes knew — whoever he 
 w T as. Why are we wasting time? " She sud- 
 denly burst out passionately. " Shoot 'em now, 
 
214 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 while we have the chance, the yellow swine ! One 
 for Tai Loy and one for the blind beggar of Han 
 T'sin! Vengeance is mine! It's come to that 
 finally, and the mercy of the Lord will uphold 
 us!" 
 
 He grasped her by the broad shoulders, did 
 George Rogers, forcing the wild black eyes to 
 look into his. 
 
 " We '11 not help you, Ann or I, until you 've 
 enlightened us. They 're asking for a truce. 
 Have Hoang call to them that w T e'll deal with 
 them in an hour, when the shadow of the house 
 reaches the base of the great dune. In the 
 meantime, you tell us what we 're supposed to 
 fight for." 
 
 For a brief moment they held the tableau. I 
 sensed the almost physical conflict of one tre- 
 mendous will battling with the other. In the 
 end it was the defiant black eyes which fluttered 
 from the steady stare of the hazel ones. Miss 
 Haldayne moved toward the window, but she did 
 not impress Hoang as interpreter. Instead, she 
 sent a defiant shout ringing to the motionless 
 two entrenched behind the improvised flag of 
 truce. One felt the hiss of hate through the 
 cadence of it, understood the rigidly uncompro- 
 mising attitude of those figures out there on the 
 sand. Instinctively my eyes sought the profile 
 of Hoang peering between the shutters. 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 215 
 
 The placid docility had rolled up from it as a 
 curtain rolls. With an instinctive recoil I saw 
 that despite the difference that cleanliness lent, 
 despite the close-cropped hair and the immacu- 
 late linen coat Hoang's face was one with those 
 of the matted savages grouped on the beach. 
 His eyes were half shut over a glittering ferocity, 
 his broad nostrils quivered, his upper lip was 
 curled back in a soft snarl as he waited for the 
 reply of the two below the window. 
 
 It came finally, abruptly dying out in th!e 
 surge of the incoming tide. 
 
 Miss Haldayne turned on us with a short, 
 harsh laugh. 
 
 " You want an explanation. You '11 get it. 
 Hoang, stay here and guard the house. Shoot 
 any one who puts a foot this side of the creek. 
 Come on," she flung over her shoulder at us. 
 
 In silence we followed her from the room and 
 down the hall. I saw with a suddenly pounding 
 heart that we were headed for the secret room 
 under the stairs. 
 
 George Rogers reached back and took my cold 
 hand in a reassuring clasp as she unlocked the 
 door and abruptly flung it open. It was well he 
 did so, for my sudden backward lunge bade fair 
 to upset us both. From the dark interior of the 
 room a figure seemed to leap to sudden life at 
 the inlet of light ; a bloated, shining face leered 
 
216 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 at us; two gleaming eyes, red as blood, burned 
 through the dark; thin lips twisted in angry 
 frenzy from tightly clenched white teeth. 
 
 Even George Rogers took an instinctive back- 
 ward step, then his grip tightened comfortingly. 
 
 "Brace up, Ann," he w T hispered as he half 
 lifted me over the threshold. " It is n't alive." 
 
 Miss Haldayne found her way unerringly 
 through the gloom and unfastened a shutter, 
 flinging it back against the wall with a defiant 
 slam. 
 
 The white shaft of daylight which darted in 
 fell broadly across the thing in the center of the 
 room and it immediately crackled into a thou- 
 sand rainbow shooting prisms of light — an idol, 
 indescribably ugly, indescribably bejeweled. A 
 short, squat body with crouching, deformed legs 
 and a horrible flat, life-sized face, shining ebony 
 and ivory, sea-green jade and jade of priceless 
 white, literally incrusted with gems that flashed 
 and scintillated wickedly in that honest shaft of 
 daylight. 
 
 Perhaps four feet high, it seemed to tower 
 above the plain black walnut table on which it 
 had been incongruously placed. There was noth- 
 ing else in the room, nothing about the cell-like 
 white plaster walls to distract the eye from its 
 hideous splendor. The imagination was stunned 
 before the glare of cunning ferocity carved on the 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 217 
 
 ebony face. One's gaze clung, helplessly en- 
 tangled in the dazzle of light. There was none 
 of the usual cheap gilt and lacquer of the average 
 Chinese idol about this. The jade of its tower- 
 ing headdress was pierced and fretted into an 
 unbelievable lacework of carving — jade whose 
 test is its inability to be scratched! Drapery, 
 wrought of gold leaf and thousands of softly 
 gleaming seed-pearls, hung about the deformed 
 limbs, the folds traced by the delicate embroidery 
 of gold inlay. Twin fortunes gleamed from the 
 inflated nostrils, where two regal Oriental emer- 
 alds were set, flashing like the depths of sunlit 
 sea water. Two more fortunes gleamed from 
 beneath the beetling brows, where a king's ran- 
 som in Burma rubies was embedded. 
 
 They compelled the attention, those deep-red 
 eyes. In the carved hollow sockets they smol- 
 dered with uncanny life. I felt my gaze drawn 
 to them to linger helplessly, fascinated by the 
 steady glare. I was aware of a fretful desire to 
 look away, to turn my eyes anywhere — any- 
 where save into those twin red beams. Deep 
 within me was born panic when I found I could 
 not obey my will. My gaze plunged deep into 
 their glowing hearts, — miles deep, as one looks 
 miles deep into a glowing coal. Distances un- 
 dreamed of came to view, I reached one seeming 
 boundary only to plunge through its burning 
 
 H 
 
218 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 crust to another vista of light held within. The 
 eyes began to grow, they enlarged and encom- 
 passed me. It w r as as though I stood on the brink 
 of a vast and glowing shaft that plunged to un- 
 canny depths beyond human sight. On each 
 side a flash of blackness suddenly hummed and 
 spun, now closing in with a roar, now retreating 
 with the sound of a faint ringing. 
 
 From far away, from very far aw T ay indeed, 1 
 heard a voice curiously like — and unlike — Miss 
 Haldayne's — hard, mocking. It seemed to be 
 shouting with stupendous effort to reach my 
 swooning consciousness, yet it was no more than 
 a stirring whisper in the midst of that singing 
 roaring. 
 
 " There it is,— That Which Cannot be Hid. 
 It called to them and the spawn of the Yellow 
 Wolf came to take their red idol back to its empty 
 Dragon Shrine ! " 
 
 A far ball of light had dawned in the heart of 
 the red glow, a mere pin-prick of light at first, 
 but growing with impossible speed, rushing 
 toward me, golden-red and dazzling, spinning on 
 its axis, hurtling forward madly. Blazing fis- 
 sures of infinite depth wormed open and closed 
 on its amazing surface, as though by insufferable 
 heat. My eyeballs were scorched, dried of grate- 
 ful moisture ; I tried to close the lids, tried fran- 
 tically. The roaring deepened in my ears ; it be- 
 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH 219 
 
 came the sound of gigantic waterfalls. They fell 
 on the frantically spinning sphere, fell with a 
 hissing that caused the nerves to shrink, terrified. 
 There was a blinding flash that stabbed my brain 
 with pain ; the world reeled madly in palpitating 
 waves of red that shook into blackness more ter- 
 rifying than the burning glow had been, then a 
 thick gray cloud that rose curtain-like in intoler- 
 able stillness. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TAI LOY ^ 
 
 THERE is nothing to tell where the grim, 
 blazing clay wastes end and the grim blaz- 
 ing sky begins. On all sides the desert stretches 
 to a seeming cloudland of eternity, — hard yel- 
 low-gray layers and benches and flattened ridges 
 undercut and abraded by the wind, each less 
 apparent to the sight the farther it recedes from 
 the gaze, until the vast choppy floor flattens out 
 to a deceptive smoothness and loses itself in the 
 distant haze. 
 
 The eyeballs ache with its vastness, it is a 
 veritable planet of desolation. Over it straggle 
 gaunt montane skeletons of hills, wasted relics 
 of sliding shingle innocent of one blade of grass. 
 For hundreds of miles the dreary abrasions of 
 saline clay swell to the horizon without a break 
 in their monotony, so that the unfortunate na- 
 tives of the waste call it Tynghiri — which means 
 " Sky." It might better be called Limbo. It is 
 the end of all things, the dreary outer region 
 which rims the pit of Hades. It is a land which 
 
 220 
 
TAI LOY 221 
 
 once lived but that is now dead and forsaken, 
 the place of long-forgotten things, the Garden of 
 Proserpine. 
 
 The faint, indelible marks of life which re- 
 main are more dreary than stark sterility would 
 be. There are salt-stained depressions, traces of 
 ancient shore-lines, remains of shells embedded 
 in the clay; there are belts of dead poplars, 
 patches of dead tamarisks, extensive beds of 
 withered reeds rattling eerily when the wind 
 passes over them — all of these on top of the 
 jardangs, never in the wind-etched furrows ; there 
 are ripple-marks on the leeward side of clay ter- 
 races and in wind-sheltered coigns, — all telling 
 of the former existence of fresh-water lakes long 
 since gone. 
 
 Only a few miserable oases now remain, — 
 straggling groups of scrubby poplars struggling 
 hard not to die; bushes of saxual; tamarisks, 
 their roots elevated on little mounds of earth 
 which their fibers have jealously held from the 
 wind that scoops the ground from about them. 
 Here live a few wild camels, drab lizards, a few 
 hares and dismal croaking crows. 
 
 Spring, which to greener, more favored coun- 
 tries means rejuvenation, brings terrific winds 
 (o this outcast land. They sweep the stretches 
 clear of sand, charging the air so thickly with 
 dust that a yellow pall of desolation hangs over 
 
222 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the gasping face of the desert and its few miser- 
 able dwellers cover their heads from the dreaded 
 burans. The sand eventually piles in gigantic 
 dunes that choke the eastern edge of the desert, — 
 great dunes shaped like horseshoes and towering 
 from thirty to three hundred feet high. They 
 scurry before the never-relenting winds like liv- 
 ing things, ridiculously immense and clumsy, 
 traveling over a hundred and sixty feet in a year, 
 moving forward inevitably, mounting as if on one 
 another's shoulders, sometimes topping their im- 
 mensity by still a third tier, — giants imbued 
 with grotesque life. 
 
 This is the Desert of Lop, the dread heart of 
 the mysterious Gobi. 
 
 Here, two thousand years ago, lived the Shan- 
 shani, who founded the state of Lou-lau and left 
 the crumbled ruins of their principal town to tell 
 their story. Here dwelt the dread Hun-yu, those 
 fierce ancestors of Attila. From here came the 
 Uighur tribes and the rulers of the Tangut king- 
 dom; and here, in the sixth century, the Turks 
 gathered strength for their descent on Christen- 
 dom. Six hundred years later, as though by 
 divine retribution, Jenghiz Khan drew away the 
 peoples of the region. The wells dried up, trees 
 drooped and withered, life gasped and died, and 
 the pall of silence fell on the face of the land. 
 It became a desert. 
 
TAI LOY 223 
 
 Now only nomad tribes breast the fierce wind 
 and brave the brazen glare of the sun. In the 
 dismal oases they have bnilt miserable settle- 
 ments and they eke out a meager existence by 
 raising a few crops along the seeping water- 
 holes, and by riding in robber bands to prey on 
 the caravans which skirt the edge of their grim 
 country. 
 
 No one — no one, that is, who by God's grace 
 had ever known a happier land, — could conceive 
 of a human willingly clinging to such a place. 
 Yet the heart of the woman who stood in the 
 blaze of late afternoon, on the edge of the dirty 
 village of Han T'sin, staring at the whirling dust- 
 cloud in the distance, raged within her and her 
 fingers vindictively crushed into a paper ball the 
 letter which to another would have spelled free- 
 dom. 
 
 She was like the country, this woman. Like it, 
 she was grim and gray. Like it, she appeared 
 to have been swept clean, — swept by the winds 
 of life which had blown away all but one grim, 
 deep-embedded purpose. It had furrowed her 
 face, scarred her soul, as the vertical faces of the 
 clay ridges were furrowed and scarred. Bleak, 
 uncompromising, capable of fits of passionate 
 wrath as the desert was capable of the dread 
 dust-storms, an iron-visaged woman, — and she 
 was a white woman. 
 
224 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Her stormy black eyes were finally withdrawn 
 from the moving dust-cloud which had blown it- 
 self into a thin ghost and she smoothed out the 
 paper in her palm, to resume her reading at the 
 point where in her anger she had crumpled it : 
 
 And so, my dear Miss Haldayne, though we appreciate 
 your zeal in thus choosing the heart of the desert in which 
 to carry the Good Word to these benighted natives, it 
 seemed for the best that you should go to other fields. 
 
 The mission funds will not permit of the continued ex- 
 pense of a worker where the population does not seem to 
 warrant it. We are sending a bearer with money and 
 camels from Nanking. Please report at headquarters when 
 you reach here, in order to ascertain your future work. 
 It will probably be necessary to send you to America on 
 business. . . . 
 
 At this point the paper was convulsively 
 crushed again and the woman's face, a grim 
 mask, was again turned toward the now settling 
 dust-cloud. 
 
 Her mind groped back over the years since she 
 came to Han T'sin, crouching beneath its dreary 
 dying poplars. Squalid, monotonous years they 
 had been, yet somehow filled with a strange 
 peace. Here her restless spirit had been soothed 
 to something like quiet; here the gnawing envy 
 which had tortured her had grown dormant. 
 Personal danger ; a never-sleeping watchfulness ; 
 the stupendous effort of swaying these children 
 
TAI LOY 225 
 
 of superstition and ignorance to Christianity, of 
 grappling spiritually with their pagan priests for 
 their souls, of maintaining a stern, almost mascu- 
 line grip on affairs, and patiently, with a cunning 
 almost equal to their own, forcing herself into 
 power in the village, — all this had left little time 
 in which to brood. And now Fate was hurling 
 her back among her own kind, back among men 
 whom she hated and women whom she despised. 
 
 A figure slipped from the door of one of the 
 huts of sun-baked brick and, silently as a shadow, 
 approached the motionless woman. A hand 
 touched her sleeve with timid reverence. 
 
 Eliza Haldayne wheeled, the scowl of her black 
 brows smoothed, her iron features softened a 
 trifle as she looked down into the soft almond 
 eyes shining up at her. 
 
 Slim, small-boned, and graceful, even by West- 
 ern standards this little Chinese maiden was at- 
 tractive. She was not of this wild Lo-Lo tribe; 
 she was a Manchu, of the reigning race of the 
 Flowery Kingdom, stolen from a south-bound 
 caravan as a baby, fourteen years before. Her 
 race showed in her skin of creamy gold which 
 overlaid the dusky pink of her cheeks, in the blue- 
 black hair, drawn back in two satin " wings " 
 from the smooth forehead, in the small pome- 
 granate mouth and the tapering fingers whose 
 daintiness daily labor could not entirely destroy ; 
 
226 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 in the high-arched little feet encased in ugly 
 skin shoes. Contrasted with the Lo-Lo women 
 with their dusty, unkempt hair, their flat feet, 
 and their faces withered and drawn even in 
 youth, she was like a pearl in the dust, like a star 
 set in the clay. 
 
 Into the grim, barren life of the white woman 
 the affection of this alien girl had stolen like a 
 sweet, insinuating perfume. No hint of the jeal- 
 ous hatred she felt for women of her own race 
 marked the serenity of the strange friendship; 
 there was too little ground for comparison. She 
 had seen the girl grow from a child to maiden- 
 hood; to her eyes the little Chinese maid was a 
 bejeweled plaything, a perfect lily-bloom, the one 
 thing of beauty she allowed herself. 
 
 The play of affection on her face now made 
 the woman's features almost gentle. " What is 
 is, Tai Loy ? " she asked in Cantonese. 
 
 A ripple of anxiety passed over the girl's face, 
 like the slight passage of wind over water. 
 
 " The Teacher is troubled," she replied in the 
 same medium. " I watched from the hut and 
 I saw her bend her brows, so," — her own pretty 
 arches drew together. " Tai Loy wishes she 
 could help. Is it that the Yellow Wolf is trou- 
 bling again? " 
 
 The white woman's gaze again sought the far 
 horizon of the desert. 
 
TAI LOY 227 
 
 " No, it 's not the Yellow Wolf this time," she 
 finally admitted. " I have to go away from here, 
 Tai Loy." 
 
 " Away from Han T'sin ! " There was stunned 
 unbelief in the girl's voice. " For always, my 
 Teacher? " 
 
 " Yes, always," came the grim reply. " It 
 costs too much to keep me here, Tai Loy. You 
 know I 've told you of the mission funds before." 
 
 Little Tai Loy seemed unable to grasp it. Her 
 words came in a shocked whisper : " There is no 
 other way? There is no one else who could give 
 money? " 
 
 " Yes, there 's some money I should have, but 
 I can't get it because of a vain, lazy fool of a 
 woman ! " The words were ripped out, hot with 
 passion. Tai Loy fixed her gentle eyes on her 
 companion's face in surprised dread. She had 
 never before heard her mentor speak so harshly. 
 
 " A spoiled, worthless woman ! " Eliza Hal- 
 dayne's face was black with anger. Her 
 thoughts leaped down the years, seeing only the 
 clearer for the time that had elapsed. Han T'sin 
 faded away, little Tai Loy vanished into the 
 limbo of things not born as yet. She was back 
 in her American home, — a strange, tense child 
 constantly being thrust aside for the whims of 
 an indulged younger sister. She watched her- 
 self grow to austere girlhood, unliked and un- 
 
228 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 wanted, a bitter green bud beside a too-flamboy- 
 ant flower, her plainness accentuated by the 
 other's beauty. She watched herself bloom into 
 lonely womanhood, — too caustic, too severe, still 
 dominated by the beautiful tyrant of the family. 
 Parental affection was denied her, showered 
 upon the spoiled beauty; friendship passed her 
 by to be offered as incense to the selfish sister. 
 
 One warming ray of affection alone stole down 
 the years to soften her face with its memory. 
 On gentle little Florence, the lonely girl had 
 showered all the fierce love of her strange nature. 
 In time, however, even this solace was denied 
 her. The delicate little girl was sent away to 
 boarding-school ; the elder sister remained in her 
 distasteful environment, grimmer and more for- 
 saken than ever. 
 
 She saw dawn in white-hot flame the one love 
 of her life, a love for which she would have 
 bowed her stubborn body to the ground ; and she 
 knew the hot resentment, the bitter pain of hav- 
 ing that love, like everything else of her life, 
 given the women she had come to hate. 
 
 As on the never-forgotten day when she had 
 learned this, body and soul writhed in an agony 
 of jealousy. Even now, long years after, her 
 breast swelled with her convulsed breath, her 
 nostrils twitched. Oh, it had been a glorious 
 revenge she had taken ! If she had not won his 
 
TAI LOY 229 
 
 love, the hated Drusilla had not kept it. The 
 match had been broken, — that had been the 
 supreme effort of her life. She had known the 
 satisfaction and pain of seeing him married to 
 another. 
 
 There was a grim smile in the black eyes at 
 the memory of Drusilla's hysterical rage. Each 
 shrieked reproach her sister had hurled upon her 
 had been balm to the terrible ache in her heart. 
 
 Then the scene shifted quickly. Her banked- 
 up emotions had found an outlet in religion. 
 She had flung herself into missionary work with 
 a zeal which was almost fanaticism, outstripping 
 gentler workers with her intense concentration. 
 It had carried her far, that abnormal ability for 
 work, — away from the land where she had put 
 in the lonely years of her youth ; away from the 
 aging, irascible father, from the sister, not so 
 beautiful now, settling down to a whining, aim- 
 less existence and feverishly spending what was 
 left of the family fortune in a vain attempt to fill 
 her empty life. Han T'sin came over the horizon 
 i — the dying poplar trees — the gray Gobi — 
 and Tai Loy. 
 
 She wheeled, to find the little maid's eyes 
 fastened upon her stony profile with fascinated 
 dread. Again her features softened. She pat- 
 ted the tapering hand which still rested on her 
 sleeve. Emboldened, Tai Loy pressed closer and 
 
230 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the dusky pink deepened beneath the gold of her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " What will become of me, when you go? My 
 Teacher, I am afraid of Han T'sin. The Yellow 
 Wolf has deigned to do me the honor of noticing 
 my miserable face." 
 
 Poor little Tai Loy looked not so much honored 
 as frightened as she spoke, and Miss Haldayne's 
 black brows met at her words. 
 
 The attentions of Yellow Wolf — the brutal 
 chief of a bandit crew, a bloodthirsty savage, 
 worthy descendant of the Hun-yu — could bode 
 no good for delicate little Tai Loy. Yellow Wolf 
 and his band were the bane of the squalid little 
 village which they made their headquarters. On 
 their inbred superstition, on their blind idolatry, 
 on the hideous cruelty and lust they practised, 
 Christianity had made never a mark. Yellow 
 Wolf was her personal enemy, — Eliza Haldayne 
 realized that. Her spirit raged within her at 
 the knowledge that her departure would leave 
 the little village of lukewarm Christians at the 
 mercy of this barbarian. But Tai Loy he should 
 not have! She settled this with characteristic 
 decision. 
 
 " You shall come with me, Tai Loy, — you and 
 Yeun Low, the blind beggar. You two are the 
 only sincere souls in this whole village of hypo- 
 crites ! " She added it more to herself than to 
 
TAI LOY 231 
 
 the girl. " The bearer will be here any day now 
 with the money and the camels. You shall come 
 to my country with me, Tai Loy." 
 
 She was not looking at the girl and so failed 
 to see the curious shadow which darkened the 
 gentle little face ; nor did she note the plaintive 
 lilt of the voice which thanked her. 
 
 The little maid stood motionless for a moment, 
 her eyes on the preoccupied face of the foreign 
 woman who had shown her such unwonted affec- 
 tion; then silently she turned and slipped be- 
 tween the dry and rattling tamarisks which 
 fringed the village. 
 
 The earth was giving up its heat in dry gasps, 
 but the tyrannical heat of the sun overhead was 
 lessening as it slipped down the sky in a haze of 
 its own making. The scarred clay ridges cast 
 long shadows in the smoky red light ; the far dis- 
 tances seemed to throw off their lethargy and 
 stretch themselves. The bitter iron land was 
 reaching out for the invigorating cold of night. 
 
 To Tai Loy, stealing through the brush, came 
 the sound of preparations for the evening meal. 
 The grinding of nut-meats, the treble singsong of 
 children, the voices of women crying nasally to 
 one another. But it came faintly; here in the 
 tamarisks was silence brooding. Here the shal- 
 low seepage from the spring spread out in a pool 
 large enough to reflect a triangle of sky. Tai 
 
232 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Loy suddenly paused in the brush, tense with 
 caution. 
 
 Crouched above the mirroring water was a 
 man's figure, wrapped in a blue-gray robe many 
 sizes too large for his shrunken frame, and ex- 
 ceedingly dirty and ragged. Apparently he was 
 studying his own reflection in the pool, with 
 deepest interest, but as a dry twig snapped under 
 the girl's foot the withered face was raised 
 sharply and held tense, listening. Then one 
 might have seen that he had no eyes, only scarred 
 sockets where eyes had once been. 
 
 The girl spoke, to ease the apprehension in that 
 old face. 
 
 " It is only Tai Loy, Father." She went for- 
 ward and crouched beside his still figure on the 
 margin. 
 
 The old man gazed up in the direction of 
 her voice with the pitiful over-attention of the 
 blind. 
 
 Tai Loy continued. " The Teacher is to leave 
 Han T'sin when the bearer- comes with the 
 camels. She has been called back to the West- 
 ern land and when she leaves I will go ; and with 
 her you will go, too, Yeun Low." 
 
 There was a short silence; then the old man 
 shook his head from side to side, slowly and 
 sadly. 
 
 " I have felt too many suns rise on the Gobi to 
 
TAI LOY 233 
 
 leave it now. I knew the youth of Han T'sin; 
 that was before ever your father's father was 
 born, little Loy. I will not die away from the 
 land of my fathers." 
 
 The girl did not dispute this. She leaned for- 
 ward and her tapering fingers brushed the ragged 
 blue-gray of his robe. 
 
 " What do you see for me, O Ancient One? " 
 she half whispered. She crouched on her heels 
 there beside him and the tender green of her 
 trailing robe melted into the carpet of young 
 reed-shoots that edged the marge. " Tell me 
 what will be ! " 
 
 There was a long silence; then, above the 
 rustling of the dry tamarisks, the reedy old voice 
 rose cryptically: 
 
 " The ripe pomegranate hangs low on the 
 branch and the reach of the Yellow One is 
 swift ! " 
 
 Beneath the smooth gold of the girl's cheeks 
 the mellow rose receded slowly. Tai Loy spoke 
 more low : 
 
 " Is that all you can see, my father? " 
 
 The sightless eyes stared down into the shallow 
 pool fringed with its scanty growth. The girl 
 waited patiently, one slender hand stealing to 
 her breast. 
 
 The voice quavered once more from the shriv- 
 eled throat : 
 
234 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " Dust, gray dust, hangs low over the plain 
 and the dawn is not for you." 
 
 A shadow crept into the soft almond eyes and 
 Tai Loy's voice was troubled. 
 
 " I am stupid beyond my years, O Wise One," 
 she said gently, " and what is light to you is my 
 darkness. Tell me clearly of the future, Father." 
 
 Again the wind rattled the tamarisks. The 
 smoky red light had deepened perceptibly before 
 the blind beggar's voice sounded monotonously: 
 
 " Gray dust over the plain, Tai Loy, and the 
 dawn is not for you ! " 
 
 A sudden chill swept the little maid crouched 
 there on her heels. The still water before her 
 flushed red with the angry sky. The tamarisks 
 rustled warningly across the pool, twigs snapped 
 beneath a foot. One of the village women was 
 coming to fill her water-bowl at the spring. Like 
 a startled hare Tai Loy sprang to her feet and 
 fled amid the thickening shadows. 
 
 On the edge of the straggling settlement, be- 
 neath a towering poplar which never leafed, 
 stood the one stone structure of the village. 
 Imposing, this place, compared with the squalid 
 clay huts clustered at its foot. Perched on a 
 rise of ground, built of unhewn stones, whose 
 crannies afforded dreary foothold for a species of 
 dry gray lichen, it had a dignity through contrast 
 and association which caused even the professed 
 
TAI LOY 235 
 
 Christians of Han T'sin to regard it with super- 
 stitious awe. For this was the Temple of the 
 Dragon Shrine, the abode of that dreaded Ked 
 One, the Kuby God of Han T'sin, Lord of the 
 Shadows and of Death, the idol before whom 
 even Yellow Wolf the Intrepid bent the knee and 
 whose favor had so long kept his robber band 
 from the slow death they dealt others. 
 
 Away from the shadows of the tamarisks the 
 night seemed not so imminent. The sun was a 
 smoky red jewel, seemingly resting on the hori- 
 zon ; the shadow of Tai Loy went bobbing before 
 her, ever growing longer. A crow cawed in sur- 
 prised derision as she slipped between two loose 
 stones in the temple wall. What was little 
 Christian Tai Loy doing here in the Temple of 
 the Dragon Shrine? 
 
 Just the other side of the aperture through 
 which she had squeezed, the girl paused and cast 
 one frightened look over her shoulder. Appar- 
 ently she had not been observed from the village, 
 but her eyes were caught and held by something 
 invisible from the lower ground, a dark cloud 
 against the red horizon, a pillar of dust moving 
 steadily against the sunset, though the winds 
 had died with dramatic suddenness when even- 
 ing fell. 
 
 Tai Loy's lips moved and although no sound 
 came she was repeating the blind beggar's words : 
 
236 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " Dust — gray dust hangs low over the plain — " 
 She shivered. 
 
 A gong sounded within the temple to mark the 
 passing of the sun and a slim, slate-gray figure 
 slipped into the fading light of the outer court. 
 His gaze leaped to the broken stone in the temple 
 wall and he came, straight as a homing dove, 
 toward the girl who lingered in the shadows. 
 
 A young priest he was, the shaven head and 
 severe slate-gray robe imparting a dignity in- 
 compatible with his years. His eyes were burn- 
 ing with a soft glow never called forth by the 
 Ruby God he served; his voice was low and 
 vibrant as he called her name. 
 
 Now the rose pink flamed over Tai Loy's face, 
 pale since the cryptic prophecy of the blind beg- 
 gar. The green robe over her little breast was 
 like an aspen trembling in the wind. Even to 
 the black satin of her hair the pink tide mounted 
 as he clasped and made prisoner the fluttering 
 hands. 
 
 " Tai Loy, for two days you have not come ! — 
 two days, my little pomegranate maid, and they 
 were as bitter herbs in my mouth. This morn- 
 ing I begged boon from the Eed One, and behold 
 — you came ! " 
 
 Now again the shadow came into Tai Loy's 
 eyes. " It was not the Red One, Hoang," and she 
 twisted her hands away firmly. " Though he sits 
 
TAI LOY 237 
 
 in the Dragon Shrine, he is nothing; he is less 
 than nothing — he is dust, a palmf ul of ashes. 
 I am very stupid in many things, but this I know : 
 there is a God who is not seen and He is the true 
 God. Oh, my dearly beloved, if you would only 
 believe this and forsake the Dragon Shrine! 
 Truly, the Red One fills me with fearful dislike ! " 
 
 " Hush, little pomegranate ! " The young 
 priest cast a fearful glance over his shoulder 
 toward the blurring outline of the temple. " The 
 Red One is swift to revenge and to strike ! Even 
 I cannot avert his vengeance; it is more swift 
 and sure than the Yellow Wolfs. Forsake the 
 Dragon Shrine — Tai Loy, even for you I dare 
 not ! The Ruby God is a strong god ; he is very 
 ancient, Tai Loy, perhaps of the time of the great 
 Yu. Long before the day dawned for Han T'sin 
 he was, brought from out the land to the west, 
 from out of Burma. Ever so long ago that was, 
 even beyond the memory of the old blind beggar. 
 He is a god, for I see men stand before him and 
 look into his deep eyes and their spirit flags and 
 is dragged from their body and goes elsewhere. 
 I know, for I too have felt that — " 
 
 Tai Loy shook the head held close against his 
 breast. 
 
 " I too felt that once, but never since the 
 Teacher came. Now I think of the White Christ 
 when I stand before the Dragon Shrine and the 
 
238 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Kuby One's eyes are as mere bits of red glass." 
 Her tone suddenly grew impatient: "Ah, my 
 beloved, why do we waste our little time, our 
 stolen time! My spirit is faint within me to- 
 night, my heart is tearing asunder. The Teacher 
 is to leave Han T'sin and I am to go with her 
 when the camels arrive." 
 
 The low cry of surprised pain which broke 
 from the young priest brought an answering 
 moan from the little maid and for a silent mo- 
 ment they clung to each other in the deepening 
 dusk. 
 
 It was the man who spoke : " You will go and 
 leave Han T'sin forever — and me ! " 
 
 Tai Loy struggled with her tears for a moment 
 in silence; then her head was bravely lifted and 
 her eyes sought his, glowing down upon her in 
 the half-light. 
 
 " I am afraid of the Yellow Wolf; yet I would 
 stay if you told me to." 
 
 The young priest's forehead creased in puzzled 
 pain and he repeated after her almost stupidly : 
 " You are afraid of the Yellow Wolf. Of the 
 Yellow Wolf? " Into the black eyes alarm sud- 
 denly smoldered to flame. The small maid was 
 crushed so close in his arms that a little cry 
 broke from her lips. 
 
 The man spoke slowly, as one who wishes to 
 convince himself : " The Yellow Wolf has been 
 
TAI LOY 239 
 
 gone since the feast of All Souls in the Seventh 
 Month. This is the Feast of the Tombs. Per- 
 haps disaster has overtaken him, perhaps the Red 
 God has withdrawn his protection. It may be 
 that the warring tribes to the north have dealt 
 the slow death he has forced upon so many of 
 their people/' 
 
 The shadow in Tai Loy's eyes did not lighten. 
 Her voice trembled. " Moons have risen and 
 waned on the absence of the Yellow Wolf before, 
 and yet he always sweeps down upon Han T'sin 
 as the pestilence sweeps. He is very cruel, the 
 Yellow Wolf. He knows where the eyes of the 
 Ancient One have gone. It was he who took 
 little Yat Low four seasons ago, and Yat Low 
 never returned to the village. Hoang, I am 
 afraid ! Let us go when the Teacher goes. This 
 is my wish, Beloved, my earnest wish, — that 
 mounted on the same camel we shall flee together 
 far from Han T'sin." 
 
 The torture of the young priest's soul showed 
 in his eyes. All of his life had been spent in 
 homage to his god. The fibers of his spirit were 
 straining. 
 
 " Tai Loy ! " and his voice was sharp with pain. 
 " I cannot tell you now. I will sacrifice to the 
 Red One and ask his favor. There is no need for 
 me here, there are three priests now — Chan- 
 chau, that old one; Kublai, my honored elder 
 
240 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 brother, and I. Surely, surely, I who have 
 tended the Dragon Shrine so faithfully shall be 
 released to my beloved ! Yet — " his voice sank 
 suddenly to the plane of lost hope — "such a 
 thing has never been." 
 
 He groaned in anguish and crushed the slim 
 figure against him. " Tai Loy, I do not know, 
 but — Tai Loy, I love you, I love you, my little 
 pomegranate maid ! " 
 
 A gong vibrated within the temple, its tones 
 eddying outward like circles from a stone flung 
 into a pond. The two clinging figures reluct- 
 antly separated. The young priest spoke low 
 and hurriedly : " Tien huni! — the time for the 
 evening sacrifice. The Red One guard you, Tai 
 Loy!" 
 
 " The Blessings of the White Christ be with 
 you, my beloved," whispered the little maid. 
 
 Silently as a shadow she glided between the 
 broken stones in the temple wall. The sky was 
 murky red now. The outline of the poplars and 
 the tamarisks was blurred. The desert sloped 
 away on all sides, vague and vast, like a great 
 saucer, to the horizon. Over the ridges of the 
 clay, split into dry, perpendicular clefts, Tai Loy 
 made her way carefully, her eyes on the uneven 
 ground to guide her slender feet. 
 
 Only when a dark bulk, the bulk that a great 
 rock might attain, loomed across the way, did she 
 
TAI LOY 241 
 
 glance up. The breath left her chest in a little 
 startled gasp, the almond eyes dilated with 
 fright, the rose seeped away from the smooth gold 
 skin. 
 
 Yeun Low had foreseen. The gray dust-clond 
 had reached Han T'sin. The Yellow Wolf tow- 
 ered before her. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE YELLOW WOLF 
 
 IN the yellow flicker of candlelight the crouch- 
 ing shadow of the blind beggar leaped up the 
 clay walls like a humpbacked giant. Eliza Hal- 
 dayne paused in the act of tying together her few 
 belongings. The candlelight gleamed in her 
 watchful black eyes as a burst of shouting came 
 from the village. It sank again to a hectic chant 
 and she gave the baggage her attention once 
 more. 
 
 The blind beggar resumed his interrupted 
 drone : 
 
 " The pack of the Yellow Wolf is in full cry 
 to-night. Han T'sin rocks beneath the thunder 
 of his followers' tread. Like a shadow I moved 
 about the village and this I have heard the women 
 tell : three villages in the Khingan hills lie smok- 
 ing at their backs; there are new-made widows 
 in the Sayan this moon. They spoke of silver 
 taken recently from a bearer from the east. 
 White Teacher, when did the carrier leave Nan- 
 king with the money sent you ? " 
 
 242 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 243 
 
 Eliza Haldayne straightened as though a 
 sword had suddenly menaced her. Her black 
 eyes leaped to sudden comprehension. " You 
 mean — he has held up my carrier? — the man 
 sent with the money and the camels? " 
 
 The old man listened, his head painfully on 
 one side. He moved his hand with the patient 
 gesture of the blind. " There are three new 
 camels in the train of the Yellow Wolf. I have 
 heard the tinkle of new-got silver," he insinu- 
 ated. 
 
 The white woman's eyes flashed with wrath. 
 "The beastly robber! The highbinder! 73 She 
 made a swift movement as though to swoop 
 through the door. The old man flung his body 
 forward in the direction of the faint sound and 
 his fingers hooked in her skirt. 
 
 " Wait ! Wait ! " The old voice was shrill with 
 alarm. " Reflect ! The pack of the Yellow 
 Wolf is full and — his bandits have no love for 
 foreign devils ! " 
 
 Her impetuous rush had half dragged him to 
 his knees, but the wisdom of his words halted 
 her. It was true. What could she and her few 
 lukewarm Christians accomplish against the evil 
 power of the Yellow Wolfs band? She stood for 
 a long moment, her black brows knit, her lips 
 pursed reflectively over her large square teeth. 
 At her feet the old beggar crouched, the uncer- 
 
£44 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 tain snadows playing over his face and blotting 
 his eyeless sockets as the candle blew in the 
 draft. 
 
 That shrill warning had carried another fear 
 to the white woman's mind. " Tai Loy ! * she 
 cried with sudden anxiety. "Where is the 
 child? This is no night for her to be abroad in 
 Han T'sin, with the Yellow Wolf at large." 
 
 " Before the sunset gong I spoke with her in 
 the tamarisks by the pool of Odontala," the old 
 voice quavered. " Shall I seek her? " 
 
 " Yes. I '11 stay here, out of the Yellow Wolf's 
 way. It 's bound to come to a quarrel be- 
 tween us if we meet," she said grimly, more to 
 herself than to him. Her mouth grew grim at 
 the passive part she was forced to play, then she 
 buckled herself to the task in hand. 
 
 " No, not that way," as the old man was feel- 
 ing his way to the entrance. " You '11 have the 
 whole pack on you if you 're seen coming out of 
 here. This way." She tugged a large chest 
 from the wall at the back of the room and showed 
 a hole made by prying out some of the sun-baked 
 clay bricks. It let down to a slight depression 
 in the ground, its telltale entrance hidden by 
 close-growing tamarisk shrubs. " Come back the 
 same way. No need of running into trouble, or 
 of taking all Han T'sin into our confidence. 
 Nobody knows about this entrance now but you. 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 245 
 
 Get Tai Loy and bring her here. I '11 hide her 
 until the band moves on." 
 
 She helped the blind man through the opening 
 and heard him moving through the familiar dark 
 with more certainty than one who depended on 
 the light. Then, turning back to the chest, she 
 lifted the lid and grimly laid a revolver and some 
 cartridges on the rude table. " Might come to 
 that," she said, speaking aloud in the way of 
 one much alone. 
 
 From the entrance of the hut she could look 
 upon the village a short distance away. Fires 
 leaped beneath the poplars, dark figures moved 
 before them, temporarily blotting the red glare 
 from sight. Faint faces stood out in momentary 
 relief as a log burst asunder with a shower of 
 sparks. The nasal chant rose and fell on the 
 cold air brooding over the desert. From far 
 away the barbaric song was answered by an out- 
 burst of chuckling laughter, — hideous clanking 
 laughter: the hyenas were answering their 
 human brethren. 
 
 A faint rustling in the tamarisks at one side 
 of the hut caused the woman's hand to drop to 
 the revolver. A dark figure separated itself from 
 the black background and glided into the radius 
 of the candlelight. It was Tai Loy. Between 
 the blue-black wings of her hair her face was 
 colorless. 
 
246 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 " Yeun Low found you, then," burst from the 
 white woman in relief. She slammed the door 
 behind the girl. Tai Loy tried to control the 
 quivering of her lips, that she might speak. 
 
 "I did not see the Old One. I fled here from 
 the Yellow Wolf. On the little hill below the 
 temple he rose before me. Honeyed words 
 dripped from his lips and he tried to sheath the 
 daggers of his eyes, but I feared him and I ran. 
 I heard him laugh. As the hyenas laugh so did 
 he — and I ran, my Teacher. He stumbled after, 
 but I am fleeter of foot and in the tamarisk patch 
 he lost me. What shall I do, O my Teacher? I 
 am afraid. There was little Yat Low. He 
 looked upon her, even as he looks upon me, and 
 she never returned to the village. I am afraid, 
 my Teacher." 
 
 The forehead of the woman was creased with 
 sudden lines. She stood silent in desperate 
 thought, smoothing the satin hair of the fright- 
 ened little creature before her. This was a ter- 
 rible problem given to Eliza Haldayne for solu- 
 tion. If the Yellow Wolf had made up his mind 
 to have Tai Loy, he would search Han T'sin from 
 end to end. Not a rice-pack, not a crevice nor 
 a cranny would be overlooked. Nor would the 
 fear of the Foreign Devil's country, which up to 
 now had protected her, be sufficient to save this 
 hut from the search. 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 247 
 
 A scratching sounded behind the chest and 
 both women ran to help the old blind beggar 
 through the opening. 
 
 The breath was nearly gone from the shriveled 
 lungs; his frail old body shook with the beating 
 of his heart. Between gasps his voice faltered : 
 
 " The Yellow Wolf comes to search this hut. 
 He has sworn by the Ruby God to have Tai Loy. 
 Quickly, come quickly! There is but one safe 
 place, — in the back of the Dragon Shrine, behind 
 the very god itself. Never will he think to look 
 for her there." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " Poor little Tai Loy was nearly 
 incoherent with fright. " The Old One is right ! 
 Hoang can hide me; even though the other two 
 priests are there, he can hide me." She was 
 gathering her green robe from about her feet and 
 frantically crawling backward through the open- 
 ing. 
 
 Miss Haldayne peered into the darkness after 
 her. " Circle the village," she advised rapidly. 
 " Look out for sentries posted outside. I '11 let 
 them think you 're here ; that '11 give you time to 
 reach the temple." 
 
 The frightened little face vanished; the dry 
 tamarisks crackled for a moment, then were si- 
 lent, Tai Loy and the old blind man were swal- 
 lowed up in the darkness. The white woman 
 shoved the heavy chest back into place, then 
 
248 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 hastily crossed the room to the door as # fresh 
 burst of shouting, nearer now, split the cold air. 
 
 Yellow Wolf flung open the door, to find him- 
 self staring into a revolver pointed by the grim- 
 mouthed woman he hated. For the moment the 
 yellow glare of the candle, after the black night 
 outside, caused him to halt and blink. The un- 
 certain shadows playing over his face with the 
 rush of air rendered him more fiercely repulsive 
 than ever. He was a giant compared with the 
 stunted Lo-Lo he ruled; his face, burned nearly 
 black, was deeply lined from squinting into the 
 sun-glare of the Gobi. His hair was a black 
 thatch, bristling in a mat from his scalp, and 
 falling halfway down his naked back. Hung 
 with skins and patches of filthy rags, his belt 
 thrust with a murderous-edged hatchet and a 
 stolen gun — this was the Scourge of the Gobi ; 
 the Yellow Pestilence of the Desert. 
 
 His small fierce eyes leaped about the room, 
 striving to pierce beyond the golden mesh of the 
 candle's flare. The corners were thick with 
 shadows and the menacing revolver kept him 
 from advancing farther. 
 
 He spoke fiercely to the unafraid white 
 woman : " Where is she? Where have you hid- 
 den Tai Loy? " 
 
 Black hatred gleamed scornfully from the eyes 
 that confronted him. 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 249 
 
 "Why should I hide Tai Loy?" she jeered. 
 " Is the Yellow Wolf so hated that women hide 
 from him? " 
 
 The taunt told. The lips twisted away from 
 the man's teeth. Only the revolver barrel 
 pointed unwaveringly kept the Wolf at bay. A 
 stir ran through those of his followers who had 
 followed him there and were clustered at his 
 back, half seen through the darkness. 
 
 The bandit spat out an oath and fingered the 
 edge of his hatchet meaningly. " The White 
 Devil will do well to bring out the maid/' he 
 warned. " She was seen to run in here." 
 
 Miss Haldayne met this with a maddening 
 laugh. Her black eyes were fanatical. 
 " You 're very brave, Yellow Wolf, — are n't you? 
 — to make war on women. Do you think I 
 would give Tai Loy up to you? She is not for 
 such desert spawn as you ! " She eyed him inso- 
 lently, moving squarely before the door as his 
 eyes plunged too far into the room with its shift- 
 ing shadows. Tai Loy should be well clear of 
 the tamarisk patch by now. 
 
 The face of the savage contracted with sudden 
 rage. The enmity which had ever smoldered 
 between him and the white woman was fanned to 
 new life. 
 
 " Bring out the maid ! " he threatened with 
 another oath, " or by the Bed God of my fathers 
 
250 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 you shall go to join the devils from whom you 
 are sprung ! n 
 
 The woman before him sneered. The fierce 
 light of battle had leaped to her black eyes ; they 
 glowed in the golden half-light. 
 
 " Yellow Wolf of Han T'sin, murderer of men, 
 despoiler of women, hear me now ! " The words 
 were melodramatic, but her delivery was slow 
 and scornful. It dropped from her lips into the 
 sudden silence with the inevitability of dripping 
 water. 
 
 " Scourge of the Desert, curse of the Hills of 
 T'ang, bastard offspring of the hyenas, before I 
 would deliver Tai Loy into your profane hands 
 I would kill her with my own! The mark of 
 the Beast is set on your forehead ; the wrath of 
 God is red above you! Upon you shall fall the 
 judgment meted out to Cain. You shall be as 
 one with Abaddon and Babylon in the day to 
 come. Leave me in peace. W T hoever first sets 
 foot over this threshold, you or one of your ras- 
 cally crew, I will send him to his fathers with 
 a bullet through his filthy hide ! " 
 
 Like all other savages, the Lo-Los delighted in 
 the dramatic. Superstition mingled with their 
 very blood and ran in every vein. The curse 
 hovered in the air as an almost tangible cloud 
 before their dreading eyes; instinctively they 
 shrank from the vehemence of the white woman. 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 251 
 
 Even the Yellow Wolf halted at its cold, meas- 
 ured cadences, rendered the more dreadful by the 
 unfamiliar phrases. A slight movement trav- 
 ersed the half -circle of barbarians, more felt than 
 seen, as an unseen breeze stirs through a rice- 
 field at night. The Yellow Wolf fell back a step, 
 then his head turned sharply. 
 
 An outburst of shouts rose on the night. Un- 
 intelligible cries rent the air out there in the 
 village. The chief wheeled, his lips twisting in 
 hate from his blackened teeth. He told off two 
 men, half-naked savages, and hurled his orders 
 at them : 
 
 " Guard the entrance of this hut. Let the 
 White Devil try to escape if she dare! I am 
 the Yellow Wolf of the Gobi. Who shall at- 
 tempt to balk my desires! " With this bragga- 
 docio he disappeared in the darkness, his feet 
 pounding the clay as he raced to the scene of the 
 outbreak. 
 
 Eliza Haldayne bolted fast the heavy door, 
 then brushed the beads of sweat from her fore- 
 head with the back of her free hand. Tai Loy 
 must have nearly reached the temple by now. 
 There, if she could evade the other two priests, 
 Hoang could hide her until the restless pack of 
 the Wolf had left. 
 
 The long night moved on, punctuated by fright- 
 ful outbursts of shrill shouts. Han T'sin cow- 
 
252 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 ered beneath the heel of the swaggering bandits ; 
 its natives crouched in their squalid huts or 
 hastened to do the bidding of their tyrant. All 
 that night Eliza Haldayne sat on the chest, her 
 back to the wall, her revolver pointing at the 
 closed square of doorway opposite. Twice only 
 did she stir, to light a fresh candle when the 
 old one burned down to the saucer. Without the 
 hut she could hear the two guards grumbling at 
 their inactivity; yet such was their fear of the 
 Yellow Wolf that their vigilance never relaxed. 
 
 When the little slit of window high up on the 
 wall showed a pallid square of dawn, fresh voices 
 drifted to her ears. The Yellow Wolf's suddenly 
 sounded close at hand in ferocious good humor, 
 but he made no further demand for the girl. 
 
 The hours passed, to the weary woman in the 
 narrow hut seeming to drag with leaden feet. 
 The sun began to beat down with its accustomed 
 fury. Only the little window-slit brought any 
 air to the dim interior. 
 
 There was a sudden hubbub outside, the rising 
 of shrill voices, a stir of excitement. She heard 
 the scraping of wood, of something heavy being 
 dragged over the hard ground. Her fingers 
 gripped the handle of the revolver tensely. Once 
 she lifted it and placed the cold rim against her 
 temple, tentatively. It fell again to her lap, its 
 muzzle pointed to the door, as a sudden mocking 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 253 
 
 voice, the voice of the Yellow Wolf, broke the 
 heated silence which had fallen. 
 
 " White Devil, behold your disciple, the Chris- 
 tian of Han T'sin ! Thus will we deal with all 
 foreign devils, with all who cross the path of 
 the Yellow Wolf!" 
 
 There was something menacing in that mock- 
 ery which dragged Eliza Haldayne to her feet 
 with weary dread, across the room to the narrow 
 slit of window. As her face appeared, a white 
 patch against the shadowy interior, a taunting 
 shout rose from the barbarians ranged outside, 
 but she hardly heard it. 
 
 In the blinding glare of the sun, driving down 
 now with cruel force before the hut, rose a 
 wooden framework a little over six feet in height. 
 It tapered up as a pyramid, its apex only large 
 enough to clip a man about the neck. It was 
 the prison of the old Chinese beggar Yeun Low. 
 In it he was forced to stand painfully on tiptoe 
 to keep from being slowly strangled. His foot- 
 hold was of bricks precariously piled one on an- 
 other, his sightless face was strained painfully 
 upright in his effort, to the full blaze of the sun. 
 Flies and gnats hung over him in buzzing clouds. 
 It was a typical Chinese torture. 
 
 Again came the savage mockery of the bandit 
 chief : 
 
 " Behold the half-chewed meat of the Yellow 
 
254 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Wolf! This time I shall finish my meal. To- 
 night a brick shall be removed from beneath his 
 feet, if that is necessary. There will be no need 
 for another one to-morrow ! " 
 
 Sickened, Eliza Haldayne staggered away from 
 the slit of window, back to the close interior of 
 the hut. The hard crust of austerity was broken 
 for once. She was a palpitating, horror-stricken 
 woman, the revolver lying forgotten in her lap, 
 her black eyes glazed and staring, only the 
 muscles of her throat moving convulsively now 
 and then throughout the hot, torturing hours. 
 
 Bed sky above the tamarisks, a smoky red light 
 hovering over the desert. Shadows grew long, 
 thickened and met. The Yellow Wolf held 
 strangely aloof. Night descended on the dusty 
 face of the Gobi. Then the exhausted woman 
 stirred herself wearily to some show of alacrity. 
 Carefully glancing over her shoulder at the nar- 
 row slit of window barely perceptible in the dark- 
 ness, she tugged aside the heavy square chest 
 and lowered herself into the outer blackness. 
 
 After the suffocating heat of the one room the 
 night air was gratefully cold and fresh. She 
 stood for one reeling moment in the shrubs, 
 bracing herself by long breaths. Then, cau- 
 tiously, that those guarding the hut might not 
 hear the crackling twigs, she crept through the 
 brush, out to the open desert beyond the oasis. 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 255 
 
 Up and down, scrambling, falling on the un- 
 even clay ridges, now forced to pass around one 
 too steep to scale, now crawling painfully down 
 a steep declivity, she made her way, until the 
 black mass of the temple bulked large before 
 her. 
 
 Through the gap in the outer wall, the gap that 
 little Tai Loy knew so well, she crawled. A 
 dark figure emerged from the black background 
 and leaped toward her, while she swayed back in 
 weak terror. 
 
 " Tai Loy ! " The cry was low but agonized. 
 
 "Hoang! Thank God!" Eliza Haldayne 
 stumbled and would have fallen but for the 
 steadying grip of the young priest. 
 
 " Tai Loy — where is she ! " came in a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 That cleared the white woman's clouding 
 brain. A cold hand seemed to grip her heart. 
 " She is n't here with you? I sent her, last 
 night ! The Yellow Wolf thought she was in my 
 hut. I let him think so, that she might have time 
 to escape. I thought she was here." 
 
 The young priest wrung his hands together in 
 anguish, but no words came. 
 
 Voices suddenly raised themselves, perilously 
 close, — the two priests walking through the 
 temple. Hoang forced himself to alertness. 
 " The others ! " he whispered brokenly. " Come ; 
 
256 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 there is only one place where you will be safe. 
 No one will suspect. Come." 
 
 Silently as a shadow he glided through the 
 gloom before her; through an entrance of 
 crumbling masonry, holding aside curtains that 
 she could not see in the dark, guiding her along 
 a tortuous passage. A mesh of golden light 
 gleamed through a curtain drawn before some lit 
 space. Hoang stopped. 
 
 " Silence ! " he cautioned. " Do not move on 
 your life while there is a footstep out there. I 
 go to find out what I can." 
 
 He glided away and Eliza Haldayne, in an 
 agony of apprehension, was left hiding at the 
 back of the heathen shrine, behind the Ruby God 
 of Han T'sin. 
 
 Tai Loy was not here! The menace of that 
 fact kept pounding upon her tired brain, until 
 in sheer self-defense she forced herself to take 
 note of outward things to quell the panic it 
 brought. Things took gradual shape through the 
 weave of the curtain. She saw the flare of can- 
 dles in their red candlesticks. One of the dragon 
 supports of the shrine gleamed in richest gold 
 inlay and lacquer, red and black, — a treasure 
 looted from some rich city in the south. Directly 
 before her, so near that her outstretched arm 
 could touch its back, was the idol. Fire opal 
 and sea-green jade, wine topaz and golden beryl, 
 
THE YELLOW WOLF 257 
 
 black jasper, apple-green chrysoprase, and rubies 
 from Kyat Pyen blazed steadily in the candles' 
 glow. An incongruous object in that squalid 
 Lo-Lo village, a marvel of intricate carving still 
 telling in its exquisite workmanship of the 
 Burma temple from, which it had been stolen cen- 
 turies before. 
 
 The curtains swayed behind her and her 
 strained nerves jumped. It was Hoang, his face 
 shell-white, his eyes black, lusterless blots of 
 fearful apprehension. 
 
 " I have a camel waiting on the desert to the 
 north. You must flee at once." 
 
 " Tai Loy ! " gasped the woman. 
 
 The young priest winced. " I shall search for 
 her until I find her; then she too shall ride to 
 safety." 
 
 Silent as the darkness through which they felt 
 their way, they stole along the passage. Be- 
 neath the woman's hand the cold rough stones 
 ceased. The air grew suddenly fresh. They 
 had reached the outer court. Through the gap 
 in the crumbling wall Hoang glided before her 
 and still silently they made their way down the 
 slight, rough hill. 
 
 There was danger now of being seen, for a leper- 
 white moon rode the heavens. They lowered 
 themselves cautiously in the deep shadows cast 
 by the scars of clay. Below them, Han T'sin 
 
 ■to* 
 
258 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 cowered beneath the dying poplars. The moon- 
 light picked out the white patch of water where 
 the blind beggar had talked to Tai Loy the night 
 before. Two fires leaped beneath the trees; the 
 ragged bandit crew gathered about them, their 
 figures dark against the rosy flame. Fitfully 
 the wind blew snatches of their savage chants 
 to the ear. The moon sailed higher, burst into 
 white flame in the sky. Its radiance picked out 
 the jagged edges of the ridges and benches of 
 clay; it picked out the black pitfalls in their 
 path, showing their depths as velvet black. It 
 picked out something else, lying there in a shal- 
 low clay depression, something leaf -green. 
 
 A sudden recklessness of danger straightened 
 the woman and the young priest and sent them 
 flying over the rugged ground. 
 
 Beneath the white leprosy of the moon, the 
 tender green on the robe seemed a spring leaf 
 fluttered to the earth, a crumpled leaf. The lit- 
 tle face between the outspread blue-black hair 
 was upturned to the sky, a bit of exquisitely 
 carved ivory, and as cold and still. 
 
 The Old One had been right. The dawn was 
 not for Tai Loy. 
 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HOANG 
 
 FOR a long moment the eyes of the two clung 
 together in mute anguish over that little 
 green figure. The young priest's face was blank 
 as white paper. Crouched on his heels, his slate- 
 gray robe melting into the gray light, his shaven 
 head gleaming ivory-white in the unpitying light 
 of the moon, he was no less motionless than the 
 dead Tai Loy. 
 
 Then he slowly swayed forw T ard until his fore- 
 head rested for a brief moment on the little 
 still bosom. When he lifted his face again to 
 the moonlight it was overspread with a sort of 
 hopeless serenity. His voice came hushed to 
 the ears of the listening white woman : 
 
 " For many years, long and faithfully, have I 
 served the Dragon Shrine, have I served the Ruby 
 God of Han T'sin, — that worthless thing of 
 wood and metal! To it I sacrificed the flower 
 of my youth, the fragrance of my love. Yet it 
 could not save my little pomegranate maid from 
 the claws of the Beast. It is worthless wood, 
 senseless stone — as you said — as you said, Tai 
 
 259 
 
260 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 Loy ! " His voice dropped to a lower note, as in 
 a song, as though that still green form could hear 
 and be comforted. " Little pomegranate maid, 
 the God you revered shall be my God! The 
 Teacher you love I shall serve for the rest of 
 my days. Thus do I answer your prayers, little 
 Loy — your prayers, little Loy — too late ! " 
 
 His voice broke and his bowed head was hidden 
 for the moment in his hands. 
 
 The white woman had slowly straightened and 
 towered above the kneeling man and the pros- 
 trate figure. Her black brows met in one un- 
 broken line, her mouth was grim, her eyes 
 gleamed. She seemed to gain stature in the 
 moonlight. As an avenging Miriam, she looked 
 toward dark Han T'sin and the leaping fires 
 beneath the poplars. Her nostrils twitched with 
 the fire of her passion. 
 
 11 Han T'sin ! Cradle of the yellow beast, 
 breeder of desert spawn, may Almighty God smite 
 you in His righteous w T rath! For every drop 
 of this innocent blood may a strong man wither 
 and die! May the pool of Odontala become a 
 dry crust! May your name be an abomination 
 throughout the desert ! May your Bed Idol — " 
 
 She checked herself abruptly, struck by a sud- 
 den thought, her black eyes flaming. On the 
 motionless figure of the crouching man she 
 wheeled. 
 
HOANG 261 
 
 " Han T'sin has robbed us of this — our dear- 
 est love. It has robbed me of my little worldly 
 goods; it would as lightly rob us of our lives. 
 We will rob it of the only thing of value it pos- 
 sesses! Hoang, we will take the Red Idol with 
 us on the camels ! " 
 
 A deep red light burned in the black eyes. 
 Her words rang crisply with grim triumph. " A 
 worthy revenge ! Han T'sin will remember this 
 crime as it watches the dust settle on the empty 
 Dragon Shrine. The idol's jewels shall be sold 
 in America and the money shall spread the teach- 
 ings of Christ throughout this benighted desert ! 
 Little Tai Loy shall not have been murdered in 
 vain ! " 
 
 The young priest gently drew a sleeve of the 
 green robe over the still face. Then he straight- 
 ened solemnly. Only the deep pain glowing in 
 the stoical eyes told of the anguish he suffered. 
 
 " We will take the Red Idol," he said simply. 
 
 With heavy hearts, they ascended the slight 
 hill. The other two priests had gone to the vil- 
 lage below. The place was empty. They felt 
 their way along the dark passage which led to 
 the back of the Dragon Shrine. 
 
 The yellow candles in their red holders glowed 
 as serenely as though no still little figure lay 
 cold in the moonlight. In their gold haze the 
 Ruby God of Han T'sin weltered in his own 
 
262 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 dazzle and his deep-red eyes glowed. An acid 
 triumph surmounted the cold ache in Eliza Hal- 
 day ne's heart at the grim justice she was meed- 
 ing. With the strength of a man she "helped the 
 young priest lift the heavy idol from the Dragon 
 Shrine where it had stood for years. A curtain, 
 looted tapestry from the East, was stretched on 
 the floor and received the fallen god. In the 
 flicker of the candles the red eyes appeared to 
 glow with malicious helplessness, the ebony lips 
 twisted from the ivory teeth in futile rage. 
 
 About the four pillars which supported the 
 Dragon Shrine the red-and-black lacquered drag- 
 ons were watching in bulging-eyed astonish- 
 ment. In the uncertain light they appeared to 
 crawl to a vantage-point, to twist closer to the 
 poles, to puff noiseless smoke from their amazed 
 nostrils and knit their startled brows. 
 
 The ends of the tapestry were gathered, one 
 by the woman, one by the priest, and in this rude 
 hammock the Bed One was carried toward the 
 rear passage. 
 
 Before they had quite gained it they stopped 
 in sudden alarm. A footfall sounded on the 
 stone step without, a figure appeared in the en- 
 trance arch, a figure that stood blinking, dazzled 
 by the change from the night to the blaze of the 
 many candles. The yellow radiance fell on the 
 
HOANG 263 
 
 skin-clad body, the blackened face, and the brist- 
 ling thatch of the Yellow Wolf. 
 
 It was only a moment that he stood dazed, his 
 unbelieving eyes squinted toward the gaping 
 space of the empty Dragon Shrine, but it was one 
 of those moments which tell in the scales of fate. 
 From the tense young priest came a queer sound, 
 a soft snarl, such a sound as a great cat-creature 
 would make in hate. Through the golden haze 
 darted a lithe avenging figure, more swift even 
 than a great cat would be, and as sure. The 
 light glanced for a brief second on the blade of an 
 upraised dagger, flashed again on its downward 
 plunge; then, with deadly accuracy, it was 
 sheathed in the Yellow Wolfs side. 
 
 A bellow of rage rang to the stone corners of 
 the temple ; the bandit broke through that costly 
 stupefaction and blundered toward the young 
 priest, fumbling fingers reaching for the hatchet 
 in his belt. The flashing dagger was withdrawn 
 viciously, flashed, and again descended, the point 
 bit into the flesh — bit deep, this time, for his 
 unguarded movement had betrayed the Wolf's 
 left breast and the needle-point of the weapon 
 found the heart. 
 
 There was a moment, eons long, in which the 
 echoes of that closed-in shout still rang in their 
 ears, while the stricken giant rocked stupidly 
 
264 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 on wide-planted, failing legs and tried to see his 
 assailant through the mist of death that mingled 
 with the yellow haze and formed a fog before his 
 eyes. Through the roar of approaching death in 
 his ears came the ringing voice of the young 
 priest, cold, sharp-pointed as ice. 
 
 " This for the murder of Tai Loy, thou yellow 
 beast ! " 
 
 It pierced through the tumult in his brain. 
 The stricken bandit tried to bellow to his follow- 
 ers, unaware that his voice made less than the 
 least whisper. His arms shot out, fumbling 
 through the fog bearing down upon him, trying to 
 reach the straight, scornful figure his failing 
 eyes could just make out, then the Scourge of the 
 Gobi tottered and crashed to the ground, driving 
 the dagger still deeper into his savage breast, 
 and lay there outsprawled in the golden light, 
 powerless at last, before the empty Dragon 
 Shrine. 
 
 It was a simple matter to lead away two camels 
 from the herd tethered at the end of the village. 
 No one had been left to guard them. Han T'sin 
 lay cowering in its huts; the followers of the 
 Yellow Wolf were gathered about the leaping 
 fires under the poplars. 
 
 On one of the animals the fallen god was 
 placed, ignominiously twisted in its tapestry 
 curtain. On this one, too, the white woman 
 
HOANG 265 
 
 mounted, her eyes gleaming with strange red 
 lights in the cold light of the moon. But when 
 they were ready to start, the young priest said 
 simply, " Wait ! " and disappeared among the 
 shadows of the scarred hill. 
 
 The night grew in long moments before he 
 came to view again, stumbling and climbing over 
 the clay ridges, and in his arms was a still green 
 figure. 
 
 " She was not of Han T'sin," and the mournful 
 cadence of his voice was like a requiem. " She 
 shall not be placed in the gray clay where hyenas 
 prowl and snarl over the dead. To the north 
 there is a tiny oasis where, above sweet waters, 
 three willows bend and where I have seen white 
 butterflies flutter. There we will take her." 
 
 The camels rose and lurched into their swing- 
 ing gait at the command. Keeping to the black 
 declivities which marred the face of the desert, 
 they were as shadows fleeing among shadows, as 
 swift and sure as the passing of the night wind. 
 
 The white woman looked back once as her 
 camel took the lead. The fires of Han T'sin were 
 red stars set in the desert, ever growing smaller. 
 The temple where the dead Wolf lay outsprawled 
 in the incense-filled golden silence was a black 
 blot against the sky. The dying village crouched 
 beneath the dying trees. 
 
 On the swaying back of the second animal the 
 
266 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 young priest's figure was rigid. His face was 
 marmoreal in the moon's glare; the little dead 
 Tai Loy was cradled in his arms. 
 
 Tai Loy had her wish. Mounted on the same 
 camel, they were fleeing far from Han T'sin. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE CURTAIN ASCENDS 
 
 OUT of the darkness dawned a star, a gleam 
 of light faintly, steadily breaking. A gray 
 vapor seemed to uproll curtainwise in oppressive 
 silence. Shape and color were born, seen dimly 
 at first, growing in density on my aching eyes. 
 The red glow before me shrunk and separated 
 and became the twin ruby eyes of the idol. 
 
 " We brought it into this country, Hoang and 
 I. No need telling how — Hoang planned it. 
 Hoang ? s clever." 
 
 It was Miss Haldayne's voice, thin and far 
 away, beating upon my ears, and I dimly knew 
 that I had been hearing that thin voice for cen- 
 turies of time, ever since I had first met the red 
 stare of the Ruby God. And even as I realized 
 this I became aware of a prickling and tingling 
 starting up my limbs ; the sluggish blood stirred 
 through chilled veins. 
 
 " We hid it for a while, planning to remove 
 the stones and sell them one at a time so that it 
 wouldn't create too much sensation. We were 
 
 267 
 
268 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 going to turn the money over to the missionaries. 
 Then the devil in the thing began to work. Oh, 
 you need n't look at me like that, George Rogers ! 
 There 's a very real devil in it. What do you 
 know of Chinese sorcery, you who have never seen 
 the heart of the Gobi! Hoang told me its his- 
 tory. It has another, a Chinese name, which 
 means i That which Cannot be Hid.- Time af- 
 ter time the warring tribes to the north sought 
 to steal it from the temple of Han T'sin. It has 
 been hidden in the Khingan Hills. A chief from 
 the Sayan made off with it and hid it in his wild 
 country. Always it was somehow returned to 
 the Dragon Shrine. I laughed at that once, like 
 you. Now I know better. It has been a mill- 
 stone about our necks. We began to hate the 
 thing. We even feared to pry out the gems and 
 sell them. The Lord did n't seem to want the 
 evil wealth it would bring. 
 
 " Once, in San Francisco's Chinatown, I felt 
 the eyes of a man upon me one day and turned. 
 It was one of the Yellow Wolfs band — here in 
 America ! I saw recognition leap into his face ; 
 then the crowd swept between us and I got away. 
 That settled it. I knew that the call of the idol 
 had been heard in Han T'sin and that Hoang and 
 I were to be hunted down. That very day we 
 came down here, to Dune House. Drusilla was 
 with me then — the whining, flabby thing you 
 
THE CURTAIN ASCENDS 269 
 
 see — and my dead sister Florence's two chil- 
 dren. This place seemed the safest haven. It 
 was an old house built by my father when he 
 expected this part of the coast to boom. 
 
 " How can I tell you of the curse the thing 
 has been! We tried to hide it, Hoang and I, 
 lest its call go out from here. We buried it 
 deep in the sand back there in the dunes. The 
 winds blew until the sand was blown away and 
 the head stuck up above it, the wicked red eyes 
 staring toward the house as if it were watching 
 us. We flung it into the water, but we flung it 
 too close in. Each low tide the ugly head pro- 
 truded, until I could n't stand it, and we dragged 
 it out one day and put it in this room. 
 
 " Here Kublai the priest, the brother of Hoang, 
 followed. Ann saw him hiding up the gully that 
 day. In the night he came stealing into the 
 house, as we knew he would, not guessing that we 
 were prepared. He came with drawn dagger, 
 and to save my life Hoang killed him — killed 
 his brother. Ann was right about the death- 
 howl. Time swung back for Hoang when he saw 
 his dead brother at his feet. He had loved Kub- 
 lai and he mourned for him in the old fashion of 
 Han T'sin. We buried him in the sand, back 
 there in the dunes, by the light of lanterns. 
 
 "After that I knew it was hopeless. That 
 we could only wait. The call of the Red God had 
 
270 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 gone out. It had called the yellow vermin here 
 from the heart of the Gobi. Chan-chau, the an- 
 cient priest, the last one now, waits outside for 
 his Ruby God and he shall receive — death ! » 
 
 The black eyes were set in a fierce stare. 
 Though she spoke in English, the woman's voice 
 had fallen to the singsong of the Chinese and 
 unconsciously she had adopted their extravagant 
 speech. 
 
 George Rogers's voice was gratefully cool and 
 steady on my ears when he replied. " Just a 
 minute, Aunt Eliza. This thing has more than 
 one angle. We 're four against twenty-odd. 
 There are forty fortunes studded in that idol 
 there, but I don't want them ! " He spoke as with 
 uncontrollable repulsion. " There 's been too 
 much death over this thing now. I 'm not going 
 to subject Ann to such danger for a heathen 
 idol." 
 
 His arm went boldly about my rigid body and 
 in the warmth of that embrace my strained 
 muscles relaxed so suddenly that he was half 
 supporting me by his strength. 
 
 His calm voice swept steadily on : " Not all 
 the red idols in the world will help poor little 
 Tai Loy now and my Ann isn't going to join 
 her. Aunt Eliza, you are going to call to that 
 Chinese priest that he can have his heathen god." 
 
 For a long moment I watched the black eyes 
 
THE CURTAIN ASCENDS 271 
 
 and the calm hazel ones in silent grapple. Deep 
 red lights were kindled in the strange woman's 
 gaze ; then they suddenly burned out, as live coals 
 turn black and dead. Her whole body appeared 
 to shrink, her mighty frame sagged, her stubborn 
 head was drooped. She made a beaten gesture. 
 
 " I did it for the best." Despite the strange 
 lethargy gripping me I raised my head, startled. 
 That plaintive voice was so unlike the usual 
 vigorous Eliza Haldayne. 
 
 The man spoke gently and low : " I know you 
 did, Aunt Eliza, but believe me, I am acting for 
 the best now." 
 
 There was no word spoken as we turned our 
 backs on the gleaming idol and went to the front 
 of the house. 
 
 As we entered the front parlor, Hoang turned 
 and now that my stupid prejudice was laid to 
 rest I could see the deep sadness, which I had 
 wilfully taken for sullenness, lying in those un- 
 smiling black eyes; could read the grief which 
 was ever gnawing at the heart faithful to little 
 dead Tai Loy. 
 
 Moving as one in a dream, as she had moved 
 on the stairs last night, Miss Haldayne flung 
 aside the red curtain which muffled the bay-win- 
 dow. 
 
 Before the house, stoically waiting in the sun- 
 shine, were the two we had left. The chief of 
 
272 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 the ragged clan was crouching on his heels in the 
 sand, Chinese fashion, but the very old priest 
 stood with folded arms, head bowed as though in 
 silent prayer, while the ocean wind fluttered the 
 slate-gray robe about his wasted body. 
 
 At the sound of the woman's voice he straight- 
 ened to attention, and even beyond the creek 
 where the ragged crew had retreated and were 
 waiting with Oriental patience a tremor ran like 
 a strong wind blowing. 
 
 Miss Haldayne turned back with a sort of 
 grim meekness. "I told them they could have 
 the idol. That they could come and get it in 
 safely," she translated. " Only these two are to 
 enter. I said that we 'd shoot the first man to 
 put his foot across the creek." 
 
 George Kogers narrowed his eyes reflectively. 
 " They '11 suspect a trap," he demurred. 
 
 The gaunt form of the woman held a curious 
 dignity as she answered this : " I have never lied 
 to them. All Han T'sin knows that I will keep 
 my word." 
 
 And indeed, with no further assurance than 
 that shouted command, the figure of the squatting 
 chief had straightened and followed the meas- 
 ured step of the old priest along the sandy path. 
 
 A dramatic silence had fallen on the jabbering 
 crew across the shallow stream. Only the surge 
 of the water could be heard as the two silent 
 
THE CURTAIN ASCENDS 273 
 
 figures mounted the steps and, unafraid, entered 
 the house of their enemies. 
 
 A dramatic silence had fallen upon us as well. 
 Hoang might have been an ivory statue save for 
 the fire in his intense eyes. The gaunt frame of 
 Miss Haldayne sagged as though only her in- 
 domitable will bore her up. The hazel eyes of 
 George Rogers held a warm glow of understand- 
 ing in their depths. He controlled the scene so 
 absolutely that there was no hesitation in the 
 priest's manner. The old man addressed him as 
 the leader; his words came in perfect English, 
 yet slowly as though he weighed and translated 
 them first in his own mind : 
 
 " Now for many years has the pool of Odontala 
 fled into the sands. It has become as a dry crust 
 on the face of the desert. Under the poplars 
 Han T'sin is no more. Her children have become 
 wanderers in the sands. The dust of the Gobi 
 has gathered upon the empty Dragon Shrine ; the 
 Ruby One has fled from among us. Because of 
 the crimes of the Yellow Wolf, because of the 
 murder of Tai Loy did the Great One turn His 
 face from us. The Yellow Wolf is dead. Han 
 T'sin rose in its wrath and killed his followers. 
 My people are weary of bloodshed and death. 
 They ask only to raise their little ones in peace. 
 We have been harried by the tribes of the North 
 and the tribes of the South have taken the full 
 
274 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 measure of revenge upon us for the crimes of 
 the Yellow Wolf. Give us our god, that we may 
 take him to the people that are left and build us 
 a place of rest in the desert. Before I go to join 
 my fathers let me restore the Kuby One to his 
 children ; then may they live in peace and indus- 
 try while the Gobi endures, that he may no more 
 become angered and turn his face from them. 
 This is the prayer of Han T'sin; the Han T'sin 
 that is no more." 
 
 I found a dry sob tearing strangely at my 
 throat. I caught George Rogers's hand. " Oh, 
 give it to them ! " I choked. " It means God to 
 them!" 
 
 The priest's aged eyes turned on me in slow 
 kindliness, but he did not speak. 
 
 George Rogers moved toward the door. 
 " Come," he said gently. 
 
 With him went the old priest and the ragged 
 stalking chief. With him went I, tense-nerved 
 and silent. In the deserted parlor the beaten 
 woman stared blankly across at the white plaster 
 wall, her black eyes glassy. Hoang sat with 
 folded arms, his head bowed on his breast. 
 
 There was not a word spoken as its strange 
 followers were led to the room of the Ruby God. 
 The old priest's head was inclined once, rever- 
 ently, then, with a strength one would never 
 
THE OUKTAIN ASCENDS 275 
 
 suspect in those shrunken arms he laid hold of 
 the idol's base and, aided by the chief, lifted it 
 from its resting place. 
 
 An unreal silence appeared to hold the mongrel 
 herd across the creek as the oddly assorted bear- 
 ers came to view on the veranda with the object 
 of their quest. There was no demonstration of 
 joy, such as one might expect. The desolation 
 of Han T'sin had been too complete for that. 
 Bather one felt the lifting of a great weight 
 from their bosoms, an almost reverent relief 
 which lay too deep to be expressed outwardly. 
 
 Our eyes followed them without words as they 
 bore it to the sloping beach. From the front 
 veranda we watched them load it clumsily upon 
 the ancient junk riding the green water out 
 there ; watched them clamber after it, lithe brown 
 monkeys in fluttering, picturesque rags. The 
 sun of mid-morning gilded the mast with its 
 crazy tilt; the faint echo of shouted commands 
 came to our ears, the great oar swung awkwardly 
 around; the rising tide floated the strange craft, 
 its rag of a sail bellied out with the salt wind; 
 the Ruby God was going back to Han T'sin. 
 
 On the upper ocean-gazing veranda, where the 
 sun fell warmly upon us, George Rogers and I 
 spoke together with voices curiously hushed. 
 
276 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 One thing remained in my mind, gnawing, un- 
 satisfied. " Those threatening notes — that I 
 don't understand. Who wrote them? " 
 
 His answer came promptly and without doubt. 
 " Aunt Eliza herself." Then, at my unexpressed 
 disbelief he continued : " She 's a strange woman. 
 A woman of mighty passions mightily repressed. 
 Her self-control is marvelous, but there 's a limit 
 to self-control, Ann. Underneath, that woman 
 is a mass of palpitating nerves. That she 's kept 
 her reason as well as she has is a tribute to the 
 hard-headed stock from which she 's sprung. In 
 the daytime she was completely mistress of the 
 situation, but at night, when the conscious will 
 is submerged, then all the emotions held in leash, 
 all the impressions, the i second nature ' or the 
 1 subconscious ' — call it what you like — comes 
 to its own. You need n't look so skeptical. If 
 you 'd seen some of the effects of shell shock such 
 as I saw in French hospitals you 'd know that the 
 line between the conscious and the subconscious 
 is very vague and it makes you doubt what is 
 real. The poor woman's very fears united to 
 torment her, as our fears materialize in dreams 
 and torture us." 
 
 u But she wrote them, she actually wrote them ! 
 And she roamed the house; you saw that! " My 
 tone w T as dazed. 
 
 "Tell me, my dear little skeptic, don't you 
 
THE CURTAIN ASCENDS 277 
 
 know that people walk in their sleep? What is 
 that but a subconscious urge controlling the 
 physical body while the conscious will is sub- 
 merged? Sanity developed a thin, brittle edge 
 there, Ann. It 's my stanch belief that another 
 month more of the strain would have broken it 
 off. She '11 be a mental wreck for a time but 
 when she pulls out of this crisis there 's the mak- 
 ing of a fine, strong-minded woman in Eliza Hal- 
 dayne." 
 
 There was a long silence during which his hand 
 strayed to my hair, wind-rumpled, and stroked 
 it gently. With a lazy content I felt his caress. 
 Ours was a strange betrothal, almost without 
 words. 
 
 My voice sounded again, dreamy to my own 
 ears : 
 
 " You told me that I heard her telling the 
 story of little Tai Loy, that my nerves betrayed 
 me into imagining that I visualized the scene. 
 Why is that more strange than Miss Haldayne 
 writing notes to herself? Why is it, then, that 
 I saw it happening before my own eyes? that 
 I did not hear — that I saw it all when I looked 
 into the idol's eyes? " 
 
 "You were all wrought up, Ann. You vir- 
 tually hypnotized yourself. You saw only the 
 things that Aunt Eliza herself saw. You got it 
 through the medium of her." 
 
278 WIND ALONG THE WASTE 
 
 I turned and looked steadily into the hazel 
 eyes. 
 
 " How about the prophecy of the blind beggar 
 to Tai Loy at the pool among the tamarisks? 
 This Miss Haldayne did not know — yet — / 
 know! " 
 
 In the depths of the hazel eyes I saw that I 
 had scored. For a long moment our gazes 
 plunged into each other's. We seemed to touch 
 deeps unknown, deeps hardly to be dreamed of. 
 The roar of the sea came from very far away. 
 Then a gust of salt wind blew fresh and clean 
 into our faces as though to blow away the musty 
 remnants of world-old mysteries; of long-hidden 
 and forbidden things. 
 
 My hand was covered by a firm, warm clasp ; 
 George Rogers's voice sounded with a pleasantly 
 firm note in it. 
 
 " Sweetheart, let 's not seek to know the 
 depths. Let >s stay up here with the wind and 
 the water and the sunshine, little Ann." 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 70<A'53BW 
 
 9CT2 1953 
 
 LD 21-100m-7,'52(A2528sl6)476 
 
YB 33090 
 
 430 gAD 
 
 az>7 
 
 w 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY