tive of the opening of the
cupboard, and the discovery that had followed.

Schwartz humored his little friend (evidently, as he now concluded, his
crazy little friend), by listening in respectful silence. Instead of
making any remark at the end, he mentioned once more that the wine was
handy. "Come!" he reiterated; "come to the table!"

Madame Fontaine drew back again behind the curtains. Jack remained
obstinately in the cell. "I mean to see it," he said, "the moment she
moves."

"Do you think your eyes will tell you?" Schwartz remonstrated. "You look
dead-beat already; your eyes will get tired. Trust the bell here, over
the door. Brass and steel don't get tired; brass and steel don't fall
asleep; brass and steel will ring, and call you to her. Take a rest and a
drink."

These words reminded Jack of the doctor's experiment with the alarm-bell.
He could not disguise from himself the stealthily-growing sense of
fatigue in his head and his limbs. "I'm afraid you're right," he said
sadly. "I wish I was a stronger man." He joined Schwartz at the table,
and dropped wearily into the watchman's chair.

His head sank on his breast, his eyes closed. He started up again. "She
may want help when she wakes!" he cried, with a look of terror. "What
must we do? Can we carry her home between us? Oh! Schwartz, I was so
confident in myself a little while since--and it seems all to have left
me now!"

"Don't worry that weary little head of yours about nothing," Schwartz
answered, with rough good-nature. "Come along with me, and I'll show you
where help's to be got when help's wanted. No! no! you won't be out of
hearing of the bell--if it rings. We'll leave the door open. It's only on
the other side of the passage here."

He lighted a lantern, and led Jack out.

Leaving the courtyard and the waiting-room on their left hand, he
advanced along the right-hand side of the passage, and opened the door of
a bed-chamber, always kept ready for use. A second door in the
bed-chamber led to a bath-room. Here, opposite the bath, stood the
cabinet in which the restorative applications were kept, under the care
of the overseer.

When the two men had gone out, Madame Fontaine ventured into the
Watchman's Chamber. Her eyes turned towards the one terrible cell, at the
farther end of the row of black curtains. She advanced towards it; and
stopped, lifting her hands to her head in the desperate effort to compose
herself.

The terror of impen