apers in his coat and his hand flew to
the pocket. They were safe; and the relief caused by this discovery left
his mind instantly free for other reflections.

And the realisation that at once came to him with a touch of dismay was,
that during his sleep some definite _change_ had been effected in the
room. He felt this with that intuitive certainty which amounts to
positive knowledge. The room was utterly still, but the corroboration
that was speedily brought to him seemed at once to fill the darkness
with a whispering, secret life that chilled his blood and made the
sheet feel like ice against his cheek.

Hark! This was it; there reached his ears, in which the blood was
already buzzing with warning clamour, a dull murmur of something that
rose indistinctly from the well of the house and became audible to him
without passing through walls or doors. There seemed no solid surface
between him, lying on the bed, and the landing; between the landing and
the stairs, and between the stairs and the hall beyond.

He knew that the door of the room _was standing open_! Therefore it had
been opened from the _inside_. Yet the window was fastened, also on the
inside.

Hardly was this realised when the conspiring silence of the hour was
broken by another and a more definite sound. A step was coming along the
passage. A certain bruise on the hip told Shorthouse that the pistol in
his pocket was ready for use and he drew it out quickly and cocked it.
Then he just had time to slip over the edge of the bed and crouch down
on the floor when the step halted on the threshold of the room. The bed
was thus between him and the open door. The window was at his back.

He waited in the darkness. What struck him as peculiar about the steps
was that there seemed no particular desire to move stealthily. There was
no extreme caution. They moved along in rather a slipshod way and
sounded like soft slippers or feet in stockings. There was something
clumsy, irresponsible, almost reckless about the movement.

For a second the steps paused upon the threshold, but only for a second.
Almost immediately they came on into the room, and as they passed from
the wood to the carpet Shorthouse noticed that they became wholly
noiseless. He waited in suspense, not knowing whether the unseen walker
was on the other side of the room or was close upon him. Presently he
stood up and stretched out his left arm in front of him, groping,
searching, feeling in a circl