I did want to know what was in my companion's mind about the Royles; for my own was no longer free from presentiments for which there was some ground in the facts of the case. But I was not going to start the subject; and Delavoye steadily avoided it until we strolled out afterward (with humble pipes on top of that Madeira!). Then his arm slipped through mine, and it was with one accord that we drifted up the road toward the house with the drawn blinds.All these days, on my constant perambulations, it had stared me in the face with its shut windows, its dirty step, its idle chimneys. Every morning those odious blinds had greeted me like red eyelids hiding dreadful eyes. And once I had remembered that the very letter-box was set like teeth against the outer world. But this summer evening, as the house came between us and a noble moon, all was so changed and chastened that I thought no evil until Uvo spoke.

"I can't help feeling that there's something wrong!" he exclaimed below his breath.

"If Coysh is not mistaken," I whispered back, "there's something very wrong indeed."

He looked at me as though I had missed the point, and I awaited an impatient intimation of the fact. But there had been something strange about Uvo Delavoye all the evening; he had singularly little to say for himself, and now he was saying it in so low a voice that I insensibly lowered mine, though we had the whole road almost to ourselves.

"You said you found old Royle quite alone the other night?"

"Absolutely--so _he_ said."

"You've no reason to doubt it, have you?"

"No reason--none. Still, it did seem odd that he should hang on to the end--the master of the house--without a soul to do anything for him."

"I quite agree with you," said Delavoye emphatically. "It's very odd. It means something. I believe I know what, too!"

But he did not appear disposed to tell me, and I was not going to press him on the point. Nor did I share his confidence in his own powers of divination. What could he know of the case, that was unknown to me--unless he had some outside source of information all the time?

That, however, I did not believe; at any rate he seemed bent upon acquiring more. He pushed the gate open, and was on the doorstep before I could say a word. I had to follow in order to remind him that his 

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