It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very
still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one
warm oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life.
He turned and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window.
He stood for a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives.
"Let us put things to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction
of these intolerable doubts, show that you dare go into that house.
Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very
softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped into the shadow
of the shrubbery. "This is foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution.
"I expected that," said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he
was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that
shadow for some considerable time.

The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done
in a rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from
the gate into the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious
climbing roses made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that
black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and
take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences,
the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night,
and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward.
He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his
legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the
shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short
of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation.
He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.

A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came