And as if to make the matter still more plain, even as they gazed upon the apparition through the palings of the graveyard fence, the words were repeated again.
"Again I say to you, my son, seek not the parchment. Watch and wait, for the day of vengeance is at hand."
Suddenly the figure of the woman had come to a halt.
Raising one thin hand aloft to the starlit sky above, these words escaped her lips.
Then advancing with a gliding movement among the crumbling stones of the old burial ground, the outline of her form seemed to fade away in the darkness, to mingle with the shadows of the great church, of the snow-capped tombs.
It was all the work of an instant. Not half the time was consumed in the happening that has elapsed in telling the tale.
As though animated by a common thought, the detective and young Frank Mansfield had leaped toward the church-yard wall.
The fence offered no obstacle.
They dropped in the snow among the headstones.
"After her, boy!" whispered Hook. "After her without an instant's delay; there's some crooked work going on here, and it will go hard with some one, but I'll find out what it is."