“And there was really nowhere else to come but here?” dubiously.

“See that light over there—­up the mountain?” he asked, leading her to a window.  “Old man Grimes and his wife live up there.  They keep a light burning all night to scare Renwood’s ghost away.  By Jove, the storm will be upon us in a minute.  I thought it had blown around us.”  The roll of thunder came up the valley.  “Thank heaven, you’re safe indoors.  Let them pursue if they like.  I’ll hide you if they come, and the servants are close-mouthed.”

“I don’t like the way you put it, Mr. Shaw.”

“Hullo, hullo—­the house,” came a shout from the wind-ridden night outside.  Two hearts inside stopped beating for a second or two.  She caught her breath sharply as she clasped his arm.

“They are after me!” she gasped.

“They must not find you here.  Really, Miss Drake, I mean it.  They wouldn’t understand.  Come with me.  Go down this hall quickly.  It leads to the garden back of the house.  There’s a gun-room at the end of the hall.  Go in there, to your right.  Here, take this!  It’s an electric saddle-lantern.  I’ll head these fellows off.  They shan’t find you.  Don’t be alarmed.”

She sped down the narrow hall and he, taking time to slip into a long dressing-coat, stepped out upon the porch in response to the now prolonged and impatient shouts.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.  The light from the windows revealed several horsemen in the roadway.

“Friends,” came back through the wind.  “Let us in out of the storm.  It’s a terror.”

“I don’t know you.”  There was a shout of laughter and some profanity.

“Oh, yes, you do, Mr. Shaw.  Open up and let us in.  It’s Dave Bank and Ed Hunter.  We can’t make the cabin before the rain.”  Shaw could see their faces now and then by the flashes of lightning and he recognized the two woodsmen, who doubtless had been visiting sweethearts up toward Ridgely.

“Take your horses to the stable, boys, and come in,” he called, laughing heartily.  Then he hurried off to the gun-room.  He passed Mrs. Ulrich coming downstairs yawning prodigiously; he called to her to wait for him in the library.

There was no one in the gun-room; the door leading to the back porch was open.  With an exclamation he leaped outside and looked about him.

“Good heavens!” he cried, staggering back.

Far off in the night, a hundred yards or more up the road, leading to Grimes’ cabin he saw the wobbling, uncertain flicker of a light wending its way like a will-o’-the-wisp through the night.  Without a moment’s hesitation and with something strangely like an oath, he rushed into the house, almost upsetting the housekeeper in his haste.

“Visitors outside.  Make ’em comfortable.  Back soon,” he jerked out as he changed his coat with small respect for his injured arm.  Then he clutched a couple of rain-coats from the rack and flew out of the back door like a man suddenly gone mad.