The Lake Mystery

 THE Dresden clock on the mantel struck twelve in soft, slow, golden notes. As the gentle echoes died away, Horace Abernethey, sitting huddled in a morris chair before the fire of logs, stirred feebly. Presently, he sat erect, moving clumsily, with the laboriousness of senility. But there was nothing of the aged in the glances of his keen, dark eyes, which shone forth brightly from out the pallid parchment of his face.