The power of concentration was gone again. He simply
paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting
medley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain,
as a boatswain's whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that same
infinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now, 'What
are you going to do? What are you going to do?'

And in the midst of this confusion, out of the infinite, as it were,
came another sharp tap at the door, and all within sank to utter
stillness again.

'It's nearly half-past eight, Arthur; I can't wait any longer.'

Lawford cast a last fleeting look into the glass, turned, and confronted
the closed door. 'Very well, Sheila, you shall not wait any longer.' He
crossed over to the door, and suddenly a swift crafty idea flashed into
his mind.

He tapped on the panel. 'Sheila,' he said softly, 'I want you first,
before you come in, to get me something out of my old writing-desk in
the smoking-room. Here is the key.' He pushed a tiny key--from off the
ring he carried--beneath the door. 'In the third little drawer from the
top, on the left side, is a letter; please don't say anything now. It
is the letter you wrote me, you will remember, after I had asked you to
marry me. You scribbled in the corner under your signature the initials
"Y.S.O.A."--do you remember? They meant, You Silly Old Arthur!--do you
remember? Will you please get that letter at once?'

'Arthur,' answered the voice from without, empty of all expression,
'what does all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense about
a silly letter? What has happened? Is this a miserable form of
persecution? Are you mad?--I refuse to get the letter.'

Lawford stooped, black and angular, against the door. 'I am not mad. Oh,
I am in the deadliest earnest, Sheila. You must get the letter, if only
for your own peace of mind.' He heard his wife hesitate as she turned.
He heard a sob. And once more he waited.

'I have brought the letter,' came the low toneless voice again.

'Have you opened it?'

There was a rustle of paper. 'Are the letters there underlined three
times--"Y.S.O.A."?'

'The letters are there.'

'And the date of the month is underneath, "April 3rd." No one else
in the whole world, living or dead, could know of this but ourselves,
Sheila?'

'Will you please open the door?'

'No one?'

'I suppose not--no one.'

'Then come in.' He unlocked the door and opened it. A da