cy exit by opening first the shutters and then the window
itself. Luckily it was a still night, and very little wind came in to
embarrass us. He then began operations on the safe, revealed by me
behind its folding screen of books, while I stood sentry on the
threshold. I may have stood there for a dozen minutes, listening to
the loud hall clock and to the gentle dentistry of Raffles in the
mouth of the safe behind me, when a third sound thrilled my every
nerve. It was the equally cautious opening of a door in the gallery
overhead.

I moistened my lips to whisper a word of warning to Raffles. But his
ears had been as quick as mine, and something longer. His lantern
darkened as I turned my head; next moment I felt his breath upon the
back of my neck. It was now too late even for a whisper, and quite out
of the question to close the mutilated door. There we could only
stand, I on the threshold, Raffles at my elbow, while one carrying a
candle crept down the stairs.

The study-door was at right angles to the lowest flight, and just to
the right of one alighting in the hall. It was thus impossible for us
to see who it was until the person was close abreast of us; but by the
rustle of the gown we knew that it was one of the ladies, and dressed
just as she had come from theatre or ball. Insensibly I drew back as
the candle swam into our field of vision: it had not traversed many
inches when a hand was clapped firmly but silently across my mouth.

I could forgive Raffles for that, at any rate! In another breath I
should have cried aloud: for the girl with the candle, the girl in her
ball-dress, at dead of night, the girl with the letter for the post,
was the last girl on God's wide earth whom I should have chosen thus
to encounter--a midnight intruder in the very house where I had been
reluctantly received on her account!

I forgot Raffles. I forgot the new and unforgivable grudge I had
against him now. I forgot his very hand across my mouth, even before
he paid me the compliment of removing it. There was the only girl in
all the world: I had eyes and brains for no one and for nothing else.
She had neither seen nor heard us, had looked neither to the right
hand nor the left. But a small oak table stood on the opposite side of
the hall; it was to this table that she went. On it was one of those
boxes in which one puts one's letters for the post; and she stooped
to read by her candle the times at which this box was cleared.