Oddly enough, as he neared the Grange, the old house itself seemed to smile at him in a friendly and encouraging way. The setting sun lent warmth to its gray walls and glinted cheerfully from its windows. One pane of glass in particular—probably because it had a slightly convex surface—a pane in one of the windows of Meg's bedroom, winked continuously as his body swayed with each onward stride. It might have been saying:
"Leave it to me! Leave it to me! I've watched ten generations of men and women passing beneath, and I know how gently Time deals with humanity's sorrows."
The idea so obsessed him that he loitered inside the gate, and glanced up to see if, by any chance, Marguérite might be in the room and have noticed his approach. Yes, she was there! She threw open the window, which, in view of what happened within the next half-minute, moved upward with a noiseless ease that was absolutely uncanny.
"Dinner is just coming in," she said. "Betty has put some hot water in your bedroom, the one opposite this, and you must hurry over your toilet."
"I also have good news," he answered gayly. "I've hit on a plan that should rout the enemy."
"Which enemy?" she asked in a lower tone.
"The powers that be," and he waved a comprehensive arm to indicate the world at large. "By putting back the clock twenty-four hours we defeat every sort of combination that can take the field against us. I'll propound the scheme at dinner, so prepare to feast with a light heart."
With expressive pantomime she inquired if Percy Whittaker was to share their council, and he replied with a nod. He was loth to deprive his eyes of the perfect picture she offered there, with her elbows resting on the window-sill, her head and shoulders set, as it were, in a frame, and the last rays of the sun brightening her pallid cheeks and weaving strands of spun gold in her brown hair. But the summons from the kitchen was not to be flouted, so he made for the door.
It will be remembered that the hall was lighted directly from the upper part of the front door, and the stained-glass window on the half-landing of the stairs. Indirectly, its gloom could be dissipated by any one of three interior doors, but all of them happened to be closed. Thus, when Armathwaite's tall figure appeared in the porch, it effectually withdrew the light gained through the glass in the front door until the door itself was opened.
He had his hand on the handle when he heard a most weird groaning and shrieking caused by the closing of the bedroom window. Practically in the same instant he caught an affrighted yell from inside the house, and some one shot violently down the stairs and into the hall, falling in a huddled heap on the floor. Armathwaite had the door open in a second, and found Percy Whittaker lying at the foot of the stairs, while Marguérite's voice came in a cry of alarm: