"God!--I... am dying... and I cannot--tell him!" she breathed.

Feverishly, weakly, she took up a pen, and upon a quarto page, already
half filled with Leroux's small, neat, illegible writing, began to
scrawl a message, bending down, one hand upon the table, and with her
whole body shaking.

Some three or four wavering lines she had written, when intimately,
for the flat of Henry Leroux in Palace Mansions lay within sight of the
clock-face--Big Ben began to chime midnight.

The writer started back and dropped a great blot of ink upon the paper;
then, realizing the cause of the disturbance, forced herself to continue
her task.

The chime being completed: ONE! boomed the clock; TWO!... THREE! ...
FOUR!...

The light in the entrance-hall went out!

FIVE! boomed Big Ben;--SIX!... SEVEN!...

A hand, of old ivory hue, a long, yellow, clawish hand, with part of a
sinewy forearm, crept in from the black lobby through the study doorway
and touched the electric switch!

EIGHT!...

The study was plunged in darkness!