conversation, he begged me not to spoil his
happy holiday hours with his daughter and
me, by leading him back to his work-a-day
thoughts. If I referred to his own experiments
in particular, he always made a joke
about being afraid of my chemical
knowledge, and of my wishing to anticipate him
in his discoveries. In brief, after a week's
run of the lower regions, the upper part of
the red-brick house, and the actual nature
of its owner's occupations still remained
impenetrable mysteries to me, pry, ponder, and
question as I might.

Thinking of this on the river-bank, in
connection with the distressing scene which I
had just had with Laura, I found that the
mysterious obstacle at which she had hinted,
the mysterious life led by her father, and the
mysterious top of the house that had hitherto
defied my curiosity, all three connected
themselves in my mind as links of the same
chain. The obstacle, being what hindered
my prospects of marrying Laura, was the
thing that most troubled me. If I only found
out what it was, and if I made light of it
(which I was resolved beforehand to do, let it
be what it might) I should most probably end
by overcoming her scruples, and taking her
away from the ominous red-brick house in
the character of my wife. But how was I to
make the all-important discovery? Cudgelling
my brains for an answer to this question
I fell at last into reasoning upon it, by a
process of natural logic, something after this
fashion:—The mysterious top of the house
is connected with the doctor, and the doctor
is connected with the obstacle which has
made wretchedness between Laura and me.
If I can only get to the top of the house, I
may get also to the root of the obstacle. It
is a dangerous and an uncertain experiment;
but, come what may of it, I will try and find
out, if human ingenuity can compass the
means, what Dr. Knapton really occupies
himself with on the other side of that iron door.

Having come to this resolution (and
deriving, let me add, parenthetically, great
consolation from it), the next subject of
consideration was the best method of getting safely
into the top regions of the house. Picking
the lock of the iron door was out of the
question, from the exposed nature of the
situation which that mysterious iron barrier
occupied. My only possible way to the
second floor, lay by the back of the
house. I had looked up at it two or three
times, whilst walking in the garden after
dinner with Laura. What had I brought
away in my memory as the result of that
casual inspection of my host's back premises?
Several fragments of useful information.
In the first place, one of the most magnificent
vines I had ever seen, grew against the
back wall of the house, trained carefully on a
strong trellis-work. In the second place, the
middle first-floor back window looked out on
a little stone balcony, built on the top of the
porch over the garden door. In the third
place, the back windows of the second-floor
had been open, on each occasion when I had
seen them, most probably to air the house,
which could not be ventilated from the front
during the hot summer weather, in
consequence of the shut-up condition of all the
windows thereabouts. In the fourth place,
hard by the coach-house in which Dr. Knapton's
neat gig was put up, there was a tool-
shed, in which the gardener kept his short
pruning-ladder. In the fifth and last place,
outside the stable in which Doctor Knapton's
blood-mare lived in luxurious solitude,
was a dog-kennel with a large mastiff chained
to it night and day. If I could only rid
myself of the dog,—a gaunt, half-starved
brute, made savage and mangy by perpetual
confinement—I did not see any reason to
despair of getting in undiscovered, at one of the
second-floor windows, provided I waited until
a sufficiently late hour and succeeded in scaling
the garden wall at the back of the house.

Life without Laura being not worth
having, I determined to risk the thing that
very night. Going back at once to the town
of Barkingham, I provided myself with a
short bit of rope, a little bull's-eye lanthorn,
a small screw-driver, and a nice bit of beef
chemically adapted for the soothing of troublesome
dogs. I then dressed, disposed of these
things neatly in my coat-pockets, and went
to the doctor's to dinner. In one respect,
Fortune favoured my audacity. It was the
sultriest day of the whole season—surely
they could not think of shutting up the
second-floor back windows to-night!

Laura was pale and silent. The lovely
brown eyes, when they looked at me, said as
plainly as in words, "We have been crying
a great deal, Frank, since we saw you last."
The little white fingers gave mine a significant
squeeze—and that was all the reference
that passed between us to what had happened
in the morning. She sat through the dinner
bravely; but, when the dessert came, left us
for the night, with a few shy hurried words
about the excessive heat of the weather being
too much for her. I rose to open the door,
and exchanged a last meaning look with her,
as she bowed and went by me. Little did I
then think that I should have to live upon
nothing but the remembrance of that look for
many weary days that were yet to come.

The doctor was in excellent spirits, and
almost oppressively hospitable. We sat
sociably chatting over our claret till past eight
o'clock. Then my host turned to his desk to
write a letter before the post went out; and I
strolled away to smoke a cigar in the garden.

Second floor back windows all open, atmosphere
as sultry as ever, gardener's pruning-
ladder quite safe in the tool-shed, savage
mastiff outside kennel crunching last bones
of supper. Good. The dog will not be
visited again to-night: I may throw my
medicated bit of beef at once into his kennel.