nd sleep she must have.
She had no fear of failing to wake at the needful time. Falling asleep,
with a special necessity for rising at a given hour present to her mind,
Anne (like most other sensitively organized people) could trust herself
to wake at that given hour, instinctively. She put her lighted candle
in a safe position, and laid down on the bed. In less than five minutes,
she was in a deep sleep.

* * * * *

The church clock struck the quarter to eleven. Hester Dethridge showed
herself at the back garden door. Geoffrey crossed the lawn, and joined
her. The light of the lamp in the passage fell on his face. She started
back from the sight of it.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head; and pointed through the dining-room door to the
brandy-bottle on the table.

"I'm as sober as you are, you fool!" he said. "Whatever else it is, it's
not that."

Hester looked at him again. He was right. However unsteady his gait
might be, his speech was not the speech, his eyes were not the eyes, of
a drunken man.

"Is she in her room for the night?"

Hester made the affirmative sign.

Geoffrey ascended the st airs, swaying from side to side. He stopped at
the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He went on into his room;
and, signing to her to follow him, closed the door.

He looked at the partition wall--without approaching it. Hester waited,
behind him.

"Is she asleep?" he asked.

Hester went to the wall; listened at it; and made the affirmative reply.

He sat down. "My head's queer," he said. "Give me a drink of water."
He drank part of the water, and poured the rest over his head. Hester
turned toward the door to leave him. He instantly stopped her. "_I_
can't unwind the strings. _I_ can't lift up the paper. Do it."

She sternly made the sign of refusal: she resolutely opened the door to
leave him. "Do you want your Confession back?" he asked. She closed the
door, stolidly submissive in an instant; and crossed to the partition
wall.

She lifted the loose strips of paper on either side of the wall--pointed
through the hollowed place--and drew back again to the other end of the
room.

He rose and walked unsteadily from the chair to the foot of his bed.
Holding by the wood-work of the bed; he waited a little. While he
waited, he became conscious of a change in the strange sensations that
possessed him. A feeling as of a breath of cold air passed over the
right side of his head. He became stead