With face outward I trusted myself to their support, and began the descent slowly, pausing between each step to listen, and gripping the side-bars tightly.

The blackness and silence, combined with what I anticipated discovering somewhere in those depths below, set my nerves tingling, yet I felt cool, and determined to press on.

Indeed, deep in my heart I welcomed the adventure, even hoped it might end in some encounter serious enough to arouse me to new thoughts--especially did I yearn to learn something definite about Philip Henley.

This to me was now the one matter of importance; to be assured that he was living or dead.

Nothing else greatly mattered, for nothing could again efface from my memory the woman he had called wife.