I may add that his wish to remain secluded does not arise from any unworthy or dishonourable motives, but merely from the instinct of self-preservation." "He is in danger, then ?" I ejaculated.
"Yes; he is in constant danger." "But why does he not apply to the magistrates for protection ?" I asked.
"If he is afraid of any one, he has only to name him and they will bind him over to keep the peace." "My dear West," said young Heatherstone, "the danger with which my father is threatened is one that cannot be averted by any human intervention.

It is none the less very real, and possibly very imminent." "You don't mean to assert that it is supernatural," I said incredulously.
"Well, hardly that, either," he answered with hesitation.

"There," he continued, "I have said rather more than I should, but I know that you will not abuse my confidence.

Good-bye!" He look to his heels and was soon out of sight round a curve in the country road.
A danger which was real and imminent, not to be averted by human means, and yet hardly supernatural--here was a conundrum indeed! I had come to look upon the inhabitants of the Hall as mere eccentrics, but after what young Mordaunt Heatherstone had just told me, I could no longer doubt that some dark and sinister meaning underlay all their actions.

The more I pondered over the problem, the more unanswerable did it appear, and yet I could not get the matter out of my thoughts.
The lonely, isolated Hall, and the strange, impending catastrophe which hung over its inmates, appealed forcibly to my imagination.