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THE HOUSE OF DARKNESS 45 here as you. Besides, I was—was only hunting for a paper " The two men looked steadily into one another's eyes a moment. Then Henry laughed out, in a sound nega- tive to mirth. "Dont let's pretend," he said shortly. ""We understand each other. We're hoth after the old man's money. "Well, what about it?" "Hush!" muttered the less cour- ageous criminal, with a slanting look about the mouldy walls, half-revealed by the sooty flare of a single candle. *'Dont say such things " "Afraid God will hear—or old Gresham ?'' jibed Henry, bitterly. '' If there's anything could bring the dead back, the thought of losing his gold would raise the old miser. Well, are you coming home? I'm not going to leave you here." "You dont trust me," whined John. Suddenly he looked at his brother sidewise, with the effect of peering thru closed eyelids. "And I dont trust you, either, you dirty spy," he snarled. "Suppose we both come up here to live, then? We can tell people we're settling the estate. Nobody knows how much money there is here, and we can settle it our own way.'' Henry smiled amiably, but in his eyes, had his brother noticed it, was the look of a Cain. "Very well, old man," he said almost affectionately; "have it your way." "Business," said the brothers, vaguely, to the village curious—"in- ventories—settlements '' "Oh, yes," sympathized the curi- ous—"how unfortunate for you! They say the old place is haunted, you know." Behind their backs, heads were shaken ominously. "I dont know what's got into the Collins boys," they said. "Their law business is a wreck, and they look ten years older in a month. H 'm! there's a curse on everything the old miser yonder touched—except Ruth." The village was partly right. The house on the hill was haunted—not by evil spirits, but by evil deeds; not by ghosts of men, but by wraiths of thoughts; not by echoes of voices, but of passions, hate, envy, suspicion, greed. In the hearts of the brothers these emotions smouldered, and the sulky smoke of the hidden fires crept up, strangling all their old, sweet brother-love. Terrible thoughts become terrible deeds, if dwelt on long enough. One damp, autumn day John, tramping moodily thru the rotten leaves under a sky as leaden as his reflections, heard the sound of a boulder starting up from its hollow on the hillside above him. Before the thought had HAD COME DESIRE, AND ITS TWIN SISTER, HATE formulated in his mind, he leaped aside with the reflex movement of his terror, and the stone, mowing a wide swath of destruction, tore by him down the slope, scorching his very heels. A glance upward revealed no visible cause for its descent, and the man whom death had grazed so nearly went home with murder in his heart, meeting his brother's bland greeting in sullen, inarticulate rage. It was perhaps a week later when Henry was called from sleep by the crash of his dream about him. He blinked his eyes open upon a room still vibrating to a noise and pungent with the bitter taste of powder. One moment, and the thin trickle of blood