He moved softly toward the door. In the darkness he felt out with his hand. It touched the panel of the door, crept down until it clasped the knob--and then suddenly, even as he moved swiftly to one side out of the direct line, he flung the door wide back upon its hinges.
And where the door had stood, there showed now but an oblong of filmy, hazy murk, scarcely more penetrable to the eye than the black interior of the hut. Nothing more! No, that was not true. There was something else--something white, a small white fluttering thing that seemed to drift and flutter downward to the ground. No sound from without--save the night sounds of the woods: The leaves talking to one another; the stir in the grasses; the low, faint, never-ending chatter of insects.
The watch ticking on Captain Francis Newcombe's wrist became a loud, discordant thing. It ticked away the minutes before he moved again.
His eyes became accustomed to the murk outside the open door. There was no one there.
That white thing lying by the threshold was an envelope. It had been stuck in the door. He reached out now, and picked it up. And now he closed the door again, and, with the flashlight on, he tore the envelope open.
He stared at the sheet of paper it contained. The single line of crude, printed letters seemed to leap out at him from the white sheet, scorching, burning, searing its message into his consciousness. He raised his hand and drew it across his forehead. It came away wet with sweat. He looked around him, snarling like a beast at bay. A thousand minions of hell here in the hut were screeching in his ears the words he had just read:
A clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour.
Polly Wickes rose hastily from the corner of the big leather-upholstered Chesterfield in which her small figure had been tucked away.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea it was so late. Every one else has been in bed ages ago."
"I think," said Locke gravely, "that it is our duty to stand by that last log. It's been a rather jolly fire, you know. I--"
"That is the second one you have put on after having made the same remark twice before," she accused him severely.
"I know," said Locke. "I'm guilty--but think of the extenuating circumstances."