had heard.

I bounded up the stairs. But on the top story I had to pause to get my
breath, and then I dared not enter. I listened outside. There was no
sound from within.

The two rooms that I occupied were separated only by a curtain, which
fell short a foot from the floor and was slung on a wooden pole,
disclosing two feet between the top of it and the ceiling. The rooms
were thus actually one, and even that might have been called small, for
the bed in the rear room was not a dozen paces from the door.

I listened for the breathing of the sleeping girl. My intelligence
cried out upon my folly, telling me that my appearance there would
terrify her; and yet that clamorous fear that beat at my heart would
not be silenced.

If I could hear her breathe, I thought, I would go quietly away, and
find a hotel in which to sleep. I listened minute after minute, but I
could not hear a sound.

At last I put my mouth to the keyhole and spoke to her. "Jacqueline,"
I called. The name sounded as strange and sweet on my own lips as it
had sounded on hers when she told it to me. I waited.

There was no answer.

Then a little louder: "Jacqueline!"

And then quite loudly: "Jacqueline!"