only dared! She ran to
her trunks. From one of them she took out from its deep hiding-place a
small jewel-case, a jewel-case very like to that one which a few months
ago she had sealed up in her tent and addressed to Kohara. She left it on
her dressing-table. She did not open it. Then she looked about her again.
It would be the easy way--if only she dared! It would be an easier way
than trying again to tell her lover what she would have told him
to-night, had he only been willing to listen.

She stood and listened, with parted lips. It seemed to her that even in
this lighted room people, unseen people, breathed about her. Then, with a
little sob in her throat, she ran to the window and shot back the bolt.
She undressed hurriedly, placed a candle by her bedside and turned out
the electric lights. As soon as she was in bed she blew out the candle.
She lay in the darkness, shivering with fear, regretting what she had
done. Every now and then a board cracked in the corridor outside the
room, as though beneath a stealthy footstep. And once inside the room the
door of a wardrobe sprang open. She would have cried out, but terror
paralysed her throat; and the next moment she heard the tread of the
sentry outside her window. The sound reassured her. There was safety in
the heavy regularity of the steps. It was a soldier who was passing, a
drilled, trustworthy soldier. "Trustworthy" was the word which the
Commissioner had used. And lulled by the soldier's presence in the garden
Violet Oliver fell asleep.

But she waked before dawn. The room was still in darkness. The moon had
sunk. Not a ray of light penetrated from behind the curtains. She lay for
a little while in bed, listening, wondering whether that window had been
opened. A queer longing came upon her--a longing to thrust back the
curtains, so that--if anything happened--she might see. That would be
better than lying here in the dark, knowing nothing, seeing nothing,
fearing everything. If she pulled back the curtains, there would be a
panel of dim light visible, however dark the night.

The longing became a necessity. She could not lie there. She sprang out
of bed, and hurried across towards the window. She had not stopped to
light her candle and she held her hands outstretched in front of her.
Suddenly, as she was half-way across the room, her hands touched
something soft.

She drew them back with a gasp of fright and stood stone-still,
stone-cold. She had touched a h