visitor of the room over mine was at once to stifle that brood of morbid
fancies with which of late both room and visitor had become associated
in my mind. I loved her so thoroughly, she was to me so complete an
embodiment of all that was noble and beautiful in womanhood, that
however unsatisfying to my curiosity such visits might be, I could not
doubt that she must have excellent reasons for making them. One thing
was quite evident, that since she herself had said nothing respecting
the room and her visits to it, it was impossible for me to question her
on the matter. Such being the case, I felt that it would be a poor
return for all her goodness to me to question Dance or any other person
respecting what she herself wished to keep concealed. Besides, it was
doubtful whether Dance would tell me anything, even if I were to ask
her. She had warned me a few hours after my arrival at Deepley Walls
that there were many things under that roof respecting which I must seek
no explanation; and with no one of the other domestics was I in any way
intimate.

Still my curiosity remained unsatisfied; still over the room itself hung
a veil of mystery which I would fain have lifted. All my visits to the
room to see whether the light shone under the door had hitherto been
made previously to the midnight visits of Sister Agnes. The question
that now arose in my mind was whether the mysterious thread of light was
or was not visible after Sister Agnes's customary visit--whether, in
fact, it shone there all the night through. In order to solve this
doubt, I lay awake the night following that of my discovery of Sister
Agnes. Listening intently, with my bed-room door ajar, I heard her go
upstairs, and ten minutes later I could just distinguish her smothered
footfall as she came down. I heard the door at the bottom of the
corridor shut behind her, and then I knew that I was safe.