Page:The council of seven.djvu/166

 *ings. As the time passed, Hartz's conviction grew that these men were assembled for a dark purpose. When at last he decided to look for consolation else-*where, his withdrawal from the library seemed to provoke a keen sense of relief.

It was ten o'clock. He sought the ladies in various stately rooms, but already they appeared to have gone to bed. Thoroughly depressed by now, the Colossus felt that he could not do better than follow this example.

His bedroom was at the end of a long cavernous-looking corridor. The room was large, magnificently upholstered and full of Louis Seize furniture, an apartment, in fact, which le grand monarque himself might have condescended to sleep in. Yet, to the senses of its present occupant, now so acutely strung, it gave a feeling of the uncanny. Shadows lurked round the canopied bed; in spite of the thick carpet, the floor seemed a thing of echoes as he walked across it; the great shutters of the windows with their look of medieval solidity might have hid some magic casement; above all, the dark lights springing from the black oak paneling were weird and strange. None knew better than Saul Hartz how to ride imagination on the curb, yet as he slowly and rather unwillingly undressed, he felt that in such a room anything might happen.

Impatient with himself he switched off the light and got into bed. But never had he felt so little like sleep. Something was afoot in this old house. Just what it was he could not say, and yet he was sure it concerned