ntest evenings he had
ever passed in his, life, took leave of his friends and departed.

Sybil was very sleepy, and as soon as their guest was gone she asked
Lyon to help her with the mattress: that she was so drowsy she could
scarcely move. He begged her to sit still, for that he himself would do
all that was necessary. And with much good-will, but also much
awkwardness, he spread the couch, and then went to tell Sybil it was
ready. But he found her with her head upon her knees, apparently fast
asleep. He lifted her gently in his arms, and carried her and laid her
on the mattress. And then, feeling overcome with drowsiness, he threw
himself down beside her, and fell into a profound sleep.

But Sybil, as she afterwards told, did not sleep so deeply. It seemed,
indeed, less sleep than stupor that overcame her. She was conscious when
her husband raised her up in his arms and laid her on the bed; but she
was too utterly oppressed with stupor and weariness to lift her eyes to
look, or open her lips to speak, or, even after he had laid her down, to
move a limb from the position into which it fell.

So she lay like one dead, except in being clearly conscious of all that
was going on around her. She knew when Lyon laid down, and when he went
to sleep. And still she lay in that heavy state, which was at once a
profound repose and a clear consciousness, for perhaps an hour longer,
when suddenly the stillness of the scene was stirred by a sound so
slight that it could only have been heard by one whose senses were, like
hers at that time, preternaturally acute. The sound was of the slow,
cautious turning of a door upon its hinges!

Without moving hand or foot, she just languidly lifted her eyelids, and
looked around upon the dim darkness.

There was a faint glow from the smouldering fire on the flagstone floor,
and there was a faint light from the starlit night coming through the
windows. By the aid of these she saw, as in a dream, the door of the
vault wide open!

In her profound state of conscious repose there was no fear of danger,
and no wish to move. So, still as in a dream, she witnessed what
followed.

First a dark, shrouded figure issued from the vault, and turned around
and bent down towards it, as if speaking to some one within. But no word
was heard. Then the figure backed a pace, drawing up from the steps of
the vault what seemed to be a long narrow box. As this box came up, it
was followed by another dark, shr