“I don’t know,” replied the girl doubtfully-“Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you. Meantime,” she added, as they approached Third House, “you won’t forget your promise, will you?”
“No.”
“As you’ve been interesting yourself in my affairs a good deal,” said the girl with friendly raillery, “I’ll just give you a bit of free advice. Don’t take everything about Dolly Ravenden too seriously. She’s had loads of attention and seen a great deal of the world, and she is pretty high-spirited; but she is in every way a splendid girl and a right-minded one. I imagine she is not always easy to understand.”
“Heaven knows I’ve made one awful blunder!” groaned Dick.
“Then don’t apologise for it too soon,” said the girl quickly. “There, I’ve been a traitor to my sex. But I like you, Dick Colton. And,” she added as they reached the door, “if you can sue as well for yourself as for another I think you might well win any woman.”
“Well, Heaven bless you for that!” said Dick Colton to the closing door.
CHAPTER TEN
THE TERROR BY NIGHT
IN every department of scientific inquiry, Professor Ravenden was, above all else, methodical. The extraordinary or unusual he set aside for calm analysis. When he came to a dark passage in his investigations, he made full notes and relied on patience and his reasoning powers for light. Facts of ascertained relations and proportions he catalogued. In crises of doubt, after exerting his own best efforts, he was not too proud to ask counsel, were there any at hand in whose judgment he felt confidence. But first he strove to make his own mind master of the problem.
Thus it was that on the night of September 19, after an evening’s moth-hunt, he went to his room and sat down to write. First, however, he changed to pyjamas and dressing-gown, for a sudden shower had soaked his clothing. He then selected from a box a cigar of a brand whose housing and apparel proclaimed it of high price and special flavour, lighted it, and smoked with deep, long puffs. To his daughter or any other who knew him well this would have signified some unusual mental condition, for the abstemious professor used tobacco most sparingly. On this occasion he needed it as a sedative. Professor Ravenden had undergone a severe shock.
For more than three hours he wrote, with long pauses for consideration. Once he rose, strode on slippered feet up and down the room and communed aloud with himself: