"Here, like two angels of good or evil, we spy upon the dull old hamlet, where nothing greater has happened than to-night since the Indians bartered their lands away for things of immediate enjoyment. Are not most of these people Indians still, ready to trade away substantial lands of antique title for the playthings of a few brief hours? Yes, heaven itself was signed away by man and woman for the juices of one forbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, like another William Penn, is running his stakes beyond the stars and peopling with angels his possessions there, the savage children are occupied with the trifles of lust, covetousness, and deceit. They are no worse than the sons of Penn, who became apostates to his charity and religion before the breath had left his body. So goes the human race, whether around the Tree of Knowledge or Kensington's Treaty Tree."
Duff Salter felt his arm pulled violently, and heard his companion whisper,
"There! Do you see it?"
Across the street, only a few hundred feet distant, an object emerged from the black mass of the buildings and moved rapidly along the opposite ridge of houses against the sky, drawing nearer the two watchers as it advanced, and passing right opposite.
Duff Salter made it out to be a woman or a figure in a gown.
It looked neither to the right nor left, and did not stoop nor cower, but strode boldly as if with right to the large residence of the Zanes, where in a minute it faded away.
Duff Salter felt a little superstitious, but Calvin Van de Lear shot past him down the ladder.
Duff heard the curtain at the window thrown up as the divinity student flashed his lamp and saw the door of the house whence the apparition had come, forced by the police.
As he descended the ladder Calvin Van de Lear extended Duff's hat to him, and pointed across the way.
They were not very prompt reaching the door of the Zane residence, but were still there in time to employ Duff Salter's key, instead of violence, to make the entry.