disappearance of his uncle--a disappearance which was yet to be
explained.

Ill luck had often seemed to dog the footsteps of his house and even his
journey home was not without a mishap; nothing serious, as things turned
out, but still something that might have been vastly so. His train was in
a wreck, rather a nasty one, but Nigel himself had come out unscathed,
and much to be congratulated, he thought, since through that wreck he has
become acquainted with what he firmly believed to be the most beautiful
girl in the world. Better yet, he had learned that she was a neighbour of
his at Merriton Towers. That fact helped him through what he felt was
going to be somewhat of an ordeal--his entrance into the gloomy and
ghost-ridden old house of his inheritance.




CHAPTER II

THE FROZEN FLAMES


Merriton Towers had been called the loneliest spot in England by many
of the tourists who chanced to visit the Fen district, and it was no
misnomer. Nigel, having seen it some thirteen years before, found that
his memory had dimmed the true vision of the place considerably; that
where he had builded romance, romance was not. Where he had softened
harsh outlines, and peopled dark corridors with his own fancies, those
same outlines had taken on a grimness that he could hardly believe
possible, and the long, dark corridors of his mind's vision were longer