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“That’s it,” whispered the chauffeur. “I was here before. The well is over there.”

The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.

“Why,” he protested, “this is the Carey place! I should say we WERE lost. We must have left the road an hour ago. There’s not another house within miles.” But he made no movement to enter. “Of all places!” he muttered.

“Well, then,” urged the girl briskly, “if there’s no other house, let’s tap Mr. Carey’s well and get on.”

“Do you know who he is?” asked the man.

The girl laughed. “You don’t need a letter of introduction to take a bucket of water, do you?” she said.

“It’s Philip Carey’s house. He lives here.” He spoke in a whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry some special significance. But the girl showed no sign of enlightenment. “You remember the Carey boys?” he urged. “They left Harvard the year I entered. They HAD to leave. They were quite mad. All the Careys have been mad. The boys were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran away with a girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and Philip was sent here.”

“Sent here?” repeated the girl. Unconsciously her voice also had sunk to a whisper.

“He has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here all the year round. When Fred said there were people hereabouts, I thought we might strike them for something to eat, or even to put us up for the night, but, Philip Carey! I shouldn’t fancy—-“

“I should think not!” exclaimed the girl.

For, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron bars.

“And the worst of it is,” went on the young man irritably, “he could give us such good things to eat.”

“It doesn’t look it,” said the girl.

“I know,” continued the man in the same eager whisper. “But–who was it was telling me? Some doctor I know who came down to see him. He said Carey does himself awfully well, has the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and wonderful collections–things he picked up in the East–gold ornaments, and jewels, and jade.”

“I shouldn’t think,” said the girl in the same hushed voice, “they would let him live so far from any neighbors with such things in the house. Suppose burglars—-“

“Burglars! Burglars would never hear of this place. How could they?–Even his friends think it’s just a private madhouse.”

The girl shivered and drew back from the gate.

Fred coughed apologetically.

“I’VE heard of it,” he volunteered. “There was a piece in the Sunday Post. It said he eats his dinner in a diamond crown, and all the walls is gold, and two monkeys wait on table with gold—-“

“Nonsense!” said the man sharply. “He eats like any one else and dresses like any one else. How far is the well from the house?”

“It’s purty near,” said the chauffeur.

“Pretty near the house, or pretty near here?”

“Just outside the kitchen; and it makes a creaky noise.”

“You mean you don’t want to go?”

Fred’s answer was unintelligible.

“You wait here with Miss Forbes,” said the young man. “And I’ll get the water.”

“Yes, sir!” said Fred, quite distinctly.

“No, sir!” said Miss Forbes, with equal distinctness. “I’m not going to be left here alone–with all these trees. I’m going with you.”

“There may be a dog,” suggested the young man, “or, I was thinking if they heard me prowling about, they might take a shot–just for luck. Why don’t you go back to the car with Fred?”

“Down that long road in the dark?” exclaimed the girl. “Do you think I have no imagination?”

The man in front, the girl close on his heels, and the boy with the buckets following, crawled through the broken gate, and moved cautiously up the gravel driveway.