the plateau. There was no human figure on its bleak expanse, but the
small trees which found scant nourishment in the rock beneath swayed
gently in the broken wind, like a line of sentries marking time. In
the centre of the line the flagpole sprang up, thin and white, lifting
the stars and stripes into the lurid light above the shadow. He could
hear the whipping of the halyards against the pole; but suddenly the
sound ceased, the flag began to flutter downward till its colours were
quenched, and only the gilded ball above now caught the sun's last
rays. Straining his gaze, he saw the janitor fold the flag on the
grass and carry it within. Then darkness seemed to fall like a canopy,
beneath which the lights of the city trembled into view.

A moment later he stood in Cardington's doorway, and looked with relief
upon the sight presented to his eyes. The flickering fire in the
grate, the bewildering congeries of books, statues, and furniture, were
doubly homelike by contrast with Leigh's late vision of the descending
night without. The old caretaker of the tower was wont to say that she
never knew a neater man than Professor Cardington, or a more disorderly
room than his. The accumulation of articles in the room seemed to
symbolise the owner's mental furniture, while his personal neatness was
a habit acquired during his stay at West Point, where he had once
occupied the chair of a modern language. There was a suggestion of the
soldier also in his unbending back as he sat at his desk, so absorbed
in his work that he did not at first look up to see who had answered
his invitation to enter.

The face he turned upon his visitor presently was stern and grey in
effect, like that of a man who has seen service. His blue eyes, though
pale in tone, were brilliant, as if the intellect behind them burned
with steady intensity and force. Nature had concealed his true quality