calling to him, drawing him back by an irresistible spell. He pushed
open the door boldly, crossed the brick floor and reentered the inner
room. The candle was still burning on the table, but the girl was not
there.

Max looked round the room. He was puzzled, suspicious. As he stood by
the table staring at the wall opposite the fireplace, wondering whether
to go out or to explore further, he found his eyes attracted to a spot
in the wall-paper where, in the feeble light, something like two
glittering beads shone out uncannily in the middle of the pattern. With
a curious sensation down his spine, Max took a hasty step back to the
door, and the beads moved slowly.

It was a pair of eyes watching him as he moved.




CHAPTER IX.

THE MAN WHO HESITATES.


Max had become accustomed, in the course of this adventurous visit, to
surprises and alarms. Every step in the enterprise he had undertaken had
brought a fresh excitement, a fresh horror. But nothing that he had so
far heard or seen had given him such a sick feeling of indefinable
terror as the sight of these two eyes, turning to watch his every
movement. For a moment he watched them, then he made a bold dash for the
place where he had seen them, and aimed a blow with his fist at the