CHAPTER XIII

The night was clear, bright, and starlit, with not a wreath of vapor drifting. The rising wind moaned through the woods about the Devereux homestead, that loomed, a dark mass, and silent as a deserted house. From the shore below came the hoarse roar of the tumbling water, to mingle with the wailing murmur of the wind; and now and then could be heard, clear-cut and eerie, the cry of a screech-owl from the woods. As evening closed in, Joseph Devereux had ordered that no lights be shown about the house, lest they mig…