I WENT back to the fishing-place with a heavy heart, overcome bymournful thoughts, for the first time in my life. It was plainthat she did not dislike me, and equally plain that there wassome obstacle connected with her father, which forbade her tolisten to my offer of marriage. From the time when she hadaccidentally looked toward the red-brick house, something in hermanner which it is quite impossible to describe, had suggested tomy mind that this obstacle was not only something she could notmention, but something that she was partly ashamed of, partlyafraid of, and partly doubtful about. What could it be? How hadshe first known it? In what way was her father connected with it?

In the course of our walks she had told me nothing about herselfwhich was not perfectly simple and unsuggestive.

Her childhood had been passed in England. After that, she hadlived with her father and mother at Paris, where the doctor hadmany friends--for all of whom she remembered feeling more or lessdislike, without being able to tell why. They had then come toEngland, and had lived in lodgings in London. For a time they hadbeen miserably poor. But, after her mother's death--a suddendeath from heart disease--there had come a change in theiraffairs, which she was quite unable to explain. They had removedto their present abode, to give the doctor full accommodation forthe carrying on of his scientific pursuits. He often had occasionto go to London; but never took her with him. The only woman athome now, beside herself, was an elderly person, who acted ascook and housekeeper, and who had been in their service for manyyears. It was very lonely sometimes not having a companion of herown age and sex; but she had got tolerably used to bear it, andto amuse herself with her books, and music, and flowers.

Thus far she chatted about herself quite freely; but when Itried, even in the vaguest manner, to lead her into discussingthe causes of her strangely secluded life, she looked sodistressed, and became so suddenly silent, that I naturallyrefrained from saying another word on that topic. One conclusion,however, I felt tolera bly sure that I had drawn correctly fromwhat she said: her father's conduct toward her, though notabsolutely blamable or grossly neglectful on any point, had stillnever been of a nature to make her ardently fond of him. Heperformed the ordinary parental duties rigidly and respectablyenough; but he had apparently not cared to win all the filiallove which his daughter would have bestowed on a moreaffectionate man.

When, after reflecting on what Alicia had told me, I began tocall to mind what I had been able to observe for myself, I foundample materials to excite my curiosity in relation to the doctor,if not my distrust.

I have already described how I heard the clang of the heavy door,on the occasion of my first visit to the red-brick house. Thenext day, when the doctor again took leave of me in the hall, Ihit on a plan for seeing the door as well as hearing it. Idawdled on my way out, till I heard the clang again; thenpretended to remember some important message which I hadforgotten to give to the doctor, and with a look of innocenthurry ran upstairs to overtake him. The disguised workman ranafter me with a shout of "Stop!" I was conveniently deaf tohim--reached the first floor landing--and arrived at a door whichshut off the whole staircase higher up; an iron door, as solid asif it belonged to a banker's strong-room, and guarded millions ofmoney. I returned to the hall, inattentive to the servant's notover-civil remonstrances, and, saying that I would wait till Isaw the doctor again, left the house.

The next day two pale-looking men, in artisan costume, came up tothe gate at the same time as I did, each carrying a long woodenbox under his arm, strongly bound with iron. I tried to make themtalk while we were waiting for admission, but neither of themwould go beyond "Yes," or "No"; and both had, to my eyes, someunmistakably sinister lines in their faces. The next day thehouskeeping cook came to the door--a buxom old woman with a lookand a ready smile, and something in her manner which suggestedthat she had not begun life quite so respectably as she was nowending it. She seemed to be decidedly satisfied with my personalappearance; talked to me on indifferent matters with greatglibness; but suddenly became silent and diplomatic the moment Ilooked toward the stair and asked innocently if she had to go upand down them often in the course of the day. As for the doctorhimself he was unapproachable on the subject of the mysteriousupper regions. If I introduced chemistry in general into theconversation he begged me not to spoil his happy holiday hourswith his daughter and me, by leading him back to his work-a-daythoughts. If I referred to his own experiments in particular healways made a joke about being afraid of my chemical knowledge,and of my wishing to anticipate him in his discoveries. In brief,after a week's run of the lower regions, the upper part of thered-brick house and the actual nature of its owner's occupationsstill remained impenetrable mysteries to me, pry, ponder, andquestion as I might.

Thinking of this on the river-bank, in connection with thedistressing scene which I had just had with Alicia, I found thatthe mysterious obstacle at which she had hinted, the mysteriouslife led by her father, and the mysterious top of the house thathad hitherto defied my curiosity, all three connected themselvesin my mind as links of the same chain. The obstacle to mymarrying Alicia was the thing that most troubled me. If I onlyfound out what it was, and if I made light of it (which I wasresolved beforehand to do, let it be what it might), I shouldmost probably end by overcoming her scruples, and taking her awayfrom the ominous red-brick house in the character of my wife. Buthow was I to make the all-important discovery?

Cudgeling my brains for an answer to this question, I fell atlast into reasoning upon it, by a process of natural logic,something after this fashion: The mysterious top of the house isconnected with the doctor, and the doctor is connected with theobstacle which has made wretchedness between Alicia and me. If Ican only get to the top of the house, I may get also to the rootof the obstacle. It is a dangerous and an uncertain experiment;but, come what may of it, I will try and find out, if humaningenuity can compass the means, what Doctor Dulcifer'soccupation really is, on the other side of that iron door.

Having come to this resolution (and deriving, let me add,parenthetically, great consolation from it), the next subject ofconsideration was the best method of getting safely into the topregions of the house.

Picking the lock of the iron door was out of the question, fromthe exposed nature of the situation which that mysterious ironbarrier occupied. My only possible way to the second floor lay bythe back of the house. I had looked up at it two or three times,while walking in the garden after dinner with Alicia. What had Ibrought away in my memory as the result of that casual inspectionof my host's back premises? Several fragments of usefulinformation.

In the first place, one of the most magnificent vines I had everseen grew against the back wall of the house, trained carefullyon a strong trellis-work. In the second place, the middlefirst-floor back window looked out on a little stone balcony,built on the top of the porch over the garden door. In the thirdplace, the back windows of the second floor had been open, oneach occasion when I had seen them--most probably to air thehouse, which could not be ventilated from the front during thehot summer weather, in consequence of the shut-up condition ofall the windows thereabouts. In the fourth place, hard by thecoach-house in which Doctor Dulcifer's neat gig was put up, therewas a tool-shed, in which the gardener kept his shortpruning-ladder. In the fifth and last place, outside the stablein which Doctor Dulcifer's blood mare lived in luxurioussolitude, was a dog-kennel with a large mastiff chained to itnight and day. If I could only rid myself of the dog--a gaunt,half-starved brute, made savage and mangy by perpetualconfinement--I did not see any reason to despair of getting inundiscovered at one of the second-floor windows--provided Iwaited until a sufficiently late hour, and succeeded in scalingthe garden wall at the back of the house.

Life without Alicia being not worth having, I determined to riskthe thing that very night.

Going back at once to the town of Barkingham, I provided myselfwith a short bit of rope, a little bull's-eye lantern, a smallscrewdriver, and a nice bit of beef chemically adapted for thesoothing of troublesome dogs. I then dressed, disposed of thesethings neatly in my coat pockets, and went to the doctor's todinner. In one respect, Fortune favored my audacity. It was thesultriest day of the whole season--surely they could not think ofshutting up the second-floor back windows to-night!

Alicia was pale and silent. The lovely brown eyes, when theylooked at me, said as plainly as in words, "We have been crying agreat deal, Frank, since we saw you last." The little whitefingers gave mine a significant squeeze--and that was all thereference that passed between us to what happened in the morning.She sat through the dinner bravely; but, when the dessert came,left us for the night, with a few shy, hurried words about theexcessive heat of the weather being too much for her. I rose toopen the door, and exchanged a last meaning look with her, as shebowed and went by me. Little did I think that I should have tolive upon nothing but the remembrance of that look for many wearydays that were yet to come.

The doctor was in excellent spirits, and almost oppressivelyhospitable. We sat sociably chatting over our claret till pasteight o'clock. Then my host turned to his desk to write a letterbefore the post want out; and I strolled away to smoke a cigar inthe garden.

Second-floor back windows all open, atmosphere as sultry as ever,gardener's pruning-ladder quite safe in the tool-shed, savagemastiff in his kennel crunching his bones for supper. Good. Thedog will not be visited again tonight: I may throw my medicatedbit of beef at once into his kennel. I acted on the ideaimmediately; the dog seized his piece of beef; I heard a snap, awheeze, a choke, and a groan--and there was the mastiff disposedof, inside the kennel, where nobody could find out that he wasdead till the time came for feeding him the next morning.

I went back to the doctor; we had a social glass of coldbrandy-and-water together; I lighted another cigar, and took myleave. My host being too respectable a man not to keep earlycountry hours, I went away, as usual, about ten. The mysteriousman-servant locked the gate behind me. I sauntered on the roadback to Barkingham for about five minutes, then struck off sharpfor the plantation, lighted my lantern with the help of my cigarand a brimstone match of that barbarous period, shut down theslide again, and made for the garden wall.

It was formidably high, and garnished horribly with brokenbottles; but it was also old, and when I came to pick at themortar with my screw-driver, I found it reasonably rotten withage and damp.

I removed four bricks to make footholes in different positions upthe wall. It was desperately hard and long work, easy as it maysound in description--especially when I had to hold on by the topof the wall, with my flat opera hat (as we used to call it inthose days) laid, as a guard, between my hand and the glass,while I cleared a way through the sharp bottle-ends for my otherhand and my knees. This done, my great difficulty was vanquished;and I had only to drop luxuriously into a flower-bed on the otherside of the wall.

Perfect stillness in the garden: no sign of a light anywhere atthe back of the house: first-floor windows all shut: second-floorwindows still open. I fetched the pruning-ladder; put it againstthe side of the porch; tied one end of my bit of rope to the topround of it; took the other end in my mouth, and prepared toclimb to the balcony over the porch by the thick vine branchesand the trellis-work.

No man who has had any real experience of life can have failed toobserve how amazingly close, in critical situations, thegrotesque and the terrible, the comic and the serious, contriveto tread on each other's heels. At such times, the last thing weought properly to think of comes into our heads, or the leastconsistent event that could possibly be expected to happen doesactually occur. When I put my life in danger on that memorablenight, by putting my foot on the trellis-work, I absolutelythought of the never-dying Lady Malkinshaw plunged in refreshingslumber, and of the frantic exclamations Mr. Batterbury wouldutter if he saw what her ladyship's grandson was doing with hisprecious life and limbs at that critical moment. I am no hero--Iwas fully aware of the danger to which I was exposing myself; andyet I protest that I caught myself laughing under my breath, withthe most outrageous inconsistency, at the instant when I beganthe ascent of the trellis-work.

I reached the balcony over the porch in safety, depending moreupon the tough vine branches than the trellis-work during myascent. My next employment was to pull up the pruning-ladder, assoftly as possible, by the rope which I held attached to it. Thisdone, I put the ladder against the house wall, listened, measuredthe distance to the open second-floor window with my eye,listened again--and, finding all quiet, began my second and lastascent. The ladder was comfortably long, and I was convenientlytall; my hand was on the window-sill--I mounted another tworounds--and my eyes were level with the interior of the room.

Suppose any one should be sleeping there!

I listened at the window attentively before I ventured on takingmy lantern out of my coatpocket. The night was so quite andairless that there was not the faintest rustle among the leavesin the garden beneath me to distract my attention. I listened.The breathing of the lightest of sleepers must have reached myear, through that intense stillness, if the room had been abedroom, and the bed were occupied. I heard nothing but the quickbeat of my own heart. The minutes of suspense were passingheavily--I laid my other hand over the window-sill, then a momentof doubt came--doubt whether I should carry the adventure anyfurther. I mastered my hesitation directly--it was too late forsecond thoughts. "Now for it!" I whispered to myself, and got inat the window.

To wait, listening again, in the darkness of that unknown region,was more than I had courage for. The moment I was down on thefloor, I pulled the lantern out of my pocket and raised theshade.

So far, so good--I found myself in a dirty lumber-room. Largepans, some of them cracked and more of them broken; empty boxesbound with iron, of the same sort as those I had seen the workmenbringing in at the front gate; old coal sacks; a packing-casefull of coke; and a huge, cracked, mouldy blacksmith'sbellows--these were the principal objects that I observed in thelumber-room. The one door leading out of it was open, as I hadexpected it would be, in order to let the air through the backwindow into the house. I took off my shoes, and stole into thepassage. My first impulse, the moment I looked along it, was toshut down my lantern-shade, and listen again.

Still I heard nothing; but at the far end of the passage I saw abright light pouring through the half-opened door of one of themysterious front rooms.

I crept softly toward it. A decidedly chemical smell began tosteal into my nostrils--and, listening again, I thought I heardabove me, and in some distant room, a noise like the low growl ofa large furnace, muffled in some peculiar manner. Should Iretrace my steps in that direction? No--not till I had seensomething of the room with the bright light, outside of which Iwas now standing. I bent forward softly; looking by little andlittle further and further through the opening of the door, untilmy head and shoulders were fairly inside the room, and my eyeshad convinced me that no living soul, sleeping or waking, was inany part of it at that particular moment. Impelled by a fatalcuriosity, I entered immediately, and began to look about me witheager eyes.

I saw iron ladles, pans full of white sand, files with whitemetal left glittering in their teeth, molds of plaster of Paris,bags containing the same material in powder, a powerful machinewith the name and use of which I was theoretically notunacquainted, white metal in a partially-fused state, bottles ofaquafortis, dies scattered over a dresser, crucibles, sandpaper,bars of metal, and edged tools in plenty, of the strangestconstruction. I was not at all a scrupulous man, as the readerknows by this time; but when I looked at these objects, andthought of Alicia, I could not for the life of me helpshuddering. There was not the least doubt about it, even afterthe little I had seen: the important chemical pursuits to whichDoctor Dulcifer was devoting himself, meant, in plain English andin one word--Coining.

Did Alicia know what I knew now, or did she only suspect it?

Whichever way I answered that question in my own mind, I could beno longer at any loss for an explanation of her behavior in themeadow by the stream, or of that unnaturally gloomy, downcastlook which overspread her face when her father's pursuits werethe subject of conversation. Did I falter in my resolution tomarry her, now that I had discovered what the obstacle was whichhad made mystery and wretchedness between us? Certainly not. Iwas above all prejudices. I was the least particular of mankind.I had no family affection in my way--and, greatest fact of all, Iwas in love. Under those circumstances what Rogue of any spiritwould have faltered? After the first shock of the discovery wasover, my resolution to be Alicia's husband was settled morefirmly than ever.

There was a little round table in a corner of the room furthestfrom the door, which I had not yet examined. A feverish longingto look at everything within my reach--to penetrate to theinnermost recesses of the labyrinth in which I had involvedmyself--consumed me. I went to the table, and saw upon it, rangedsymmetrically side by side, four objects which looked like thickrulers wrapped up in silver paper. I opened the paper at the endof one of the rulers, and found that it was composed ofhalf-crowns. I had closed the paper again, and was just raisingmy head from the table over which it had been bent, when my rightcheek came in contact with something hard and cold. I startedback--looked up--and confronted Doctor Dulcifer, holding a pistolat my right temple.