'Open to him, Madam, I recommend you,' said Dirty Davy, in a hard whisper; 'will I go?'
'Not a step; not a word;' and Mary Matchwell griped his wrist.
But a window in Mrs. Nutter's room was opened, and Moggy's voice cried out—
'Don't go, Sir; for the love o' goodness, don't go. Is it Father Roach that's in it?'
''Tis I, woman—Mr. Lowe—open the door, I've a word or two to say.'
CHAPTER XCII.
THE WHER-WOLF.
bout a quarter of an hour before this, Mr. Paul Dangerfield was packing two trunks in his little parlour, and burning letters industriously in the fire, when his keen ear caught a sound at which a prophetic instinct within him vibrated alarm. A minute or two before he had heard a stealthy footstep outside. Then he heard the cook walk along the passage, muttering to herself, to the hall-door, where there arose a whispering. He glanced round his shoulder at the window. It was barred. Then lifting the table and its load lightly from before him, he stood erect, fronting the door, and listening intently. Two steps on tip-toe brought him to it, and he placed his fingers on the key. But he recollected a better way. There was one of those bolts that rise and fall perpendicularly in a series of rings, and bar or open the door by a touch to a rope connected with it by a wire and a crank or two.