CHAPTER X.--AT MIDNIGHT.
It was night, warm, beautiful and starry, and a scented softness hung over the high-walled garden of Dr. Van Steyne. The flowers were sleeping, but in their slumbers still they gave up their incense to the air.
It was nearly half-past ten, and the big mansion, save in one place, was everywhere in darkness. From one window came out a thin ray of light.
A man sat alone in a long room, a room that spoke of culture and refinement, and the means of purchasing beautiful things. There was the small light of a reading-lamp burning upon a desk, with the shade turned over so that the room was full of shadows.
The man was not reading. He was thinking, and from the expression on his face his thoughts were not unpleasant ones. His eyes were dreamily half-closed, and there w
