moved across the library and passed out onto the ve-
randah. Once again he crossed the lawn, taking advan-
tage of the several trees and shrubs which dotted it,
scaled the low stone wall at the side and was in the
concealing shadows of the unlighted side street which
bounds the Prim estate upon the south. The streets of
Oakdale are flanked by imposing battalions of elm and
maple which over-arch and meet above the thorough-
fares; and now, following an early Spring, their foliage
eclipsed the infrequent arclights to the eminent satis-
faction of those nocturnal wayfarers who prefer neither
publicity nor the spot light. Of such there are few within
the well ordered precincts of lawabiding Oakdale; but
to-night there was at least one and this one was deeply
grateful for the gloomy walks along which he hurried
toward the limits of the city.

At last he found himself upon a country road with
the odors of Spring in his nostrils and the world before
him. The night noises of the open country fell strangely
upon his ears accentuating rather than relieving the my-
riad noted silence of Nature. Familiar sounds became
unreal and weird, the deep bass of innumerable bull
frogs took on an uncanny humanness which sent a half
shudder through the slender frame. The burglar felt a
sad loneliness creeping over him. He tried whistling in
an effort to shake off the depressing effects of this seem-
ing solitude through which he moved; but there re-
mained with him still the hallucination that he moved
alone through a strange, new world peopled by invisible