itself heard at the Fulham police station. In Reuben Limbrick's time the
rope had communicated with his bedroom. It hung now against the wall, in
the passage outside.

Looking from one to the other of the objects around her, Anne's eyes
rested on the partition wall which divided the room from the room
next to it. The wall was not broken by a door of communication, it had
nothing placed against it but a wash-hand-stand and two chairs.

"Who sleeps in the next room?" said Anne.

Hester Dethridge pointed down to the drawing-room in which they had left
Geoffrey, Geoffrey slept in the room.

Anne led the way out again into the passage.

"Show me the second room," she said.

The second room was also in front of the house. More ugliness (of
first-rate quality) in the paper and the carpet. Another heavy mahogany
bedstead; but, this time, a bedstead with a canopy attached to the head
of it--supporting its own curtains. Anticipating Anne's inquiry, on
this occasion, Hester looked toward the next room, at the back of the
cottage, and pointed to herself. Anne at once decided on choosing the
second room; it was the farthest from Geoffrey. Hester waited while she
wrote the address at which her luggage would be found (at the house
of the musical agent), and then, having applied for, and received her
directions as to the evening meal which she should send up stairs,
quitted the room.

Left alone, Anne secured the door, and threw herself on the bed. Still
too weary to exert her mind, still physically incapable of realizing
the helplessness and the peril of her position, she opened a locket that
hung from her neck, kissed the portrait of her mother and the portrait
of Blanche placed opposite to each other inside it, and sank into a deep
and dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile Geoffrey repeated his final orders to the lad, at the cottage
gate.

"When you have got the luggage, you are to go to the lawyer. If he can
come here to-night, you will show him the way. If he can't come, you
will bring me a letter from him. Make any mistake in this, and it will
be the worst day's work you ever did in your life. Away with you, and
don't lose the train."

The lad ran off. Geoffrey waited, looking after him, and turning over in
his mind what had been done up to that time.

"All right, so far," he said to himself. "I didn't ride in the cab with
her. I told her before witnesses I didn't forgive her, and why I had
her in the house. I've put her i