reflecting what a fool I should look if anyone chanced to find me.

Half an hour or so later by the light of the setting moon which
struggled through a window, I saw the door open and Miss Holmes emerge
in a kind of dressing-gown and still wearing the necklace which Harût
and Marût had given her. Of this I was sure for the light gleamed upon
the red stones.

Also it shone upon her face and showed me without doubt that she was
walking in her sleep.

Gliding as silently as a ghost she crossed the corridor and vanished.
I followed and saw that she had descended an ancient, twisting stairway
which I had noted in the castle wall. I went after her, my stockinged
feet making no noise, feeling my way carefully in the darkness of the
stair, for I did not dare to strike a match. Beneath me I heard a noise
as of someone fumbling with bolts. Then a door creaked on its hinges and
there was some light. When I reached the doorway I caught sight of the
figure of Miss Holmes flitting across a hollow garden that was laid out
in the bottom of the castle moat which had been drained. The garden, as
I had observed when we walked through it on the previous day on our way
to the first covert that we shot, was bordered by a shrubbery through
which ran paths that led to the back drive of the castle.

Across the garden glided the figure of Miss Holmes and after it went I,
crouching and taking cover behind every bush as though I were stalking
big game, which indeed I was. She entered the shrubbery, moving much
more swiftly now, for as she went she seemed to gather speed, like a
stone which is rolled down a hill. It was as though whatever might be
attracting her, for I felt sure that she was being drawn by something,