How long would he be detained a prisoner in this house, and, when the roads were free, how could he find for Madge any absolute proof of his innocence?
The track of the midnight thief was lost for ever in the snow; if he had succeeded in escaping as mysteriously as he had come--but here Courthope's mind refused again to enter upon the problem of the fiend-like enemy and the impassable snowfields, which in the hours of darkness he had already given up, perceiving the futility of his speculation until further facts were known.
Courthope strolled through the rooms, the doors of which were now open.
Morin permitted this scant liberty chiefly, the prisoner thought, because of a wholesome fear of being kicked.

In the library at the back of the drawing-room he found amusement in reading the titles of the books down one long shelf and up another.

Every book to which Madge had had access had an interest for him.

Three cases were filled with books of law and history; there was but one from which the books had of late been frequently taken.

It was filled with romance and poetry, nothing so late as the middle of the present century, nothing that had not some claim upon educated readers, and yet it was a motley collection.