he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His
face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He had
never been wilier nor more alert.

His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which
the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining
sides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and
then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed.

He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the
manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he
never for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintest
guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling or
surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his
scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and that
under the bed in search of his slippers....

But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at
once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found
the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance
he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers
accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to
keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. When
presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had
caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket
of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather
guard....

Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself
again.