be guided to the room in which to find him. If, after waiting a
reasonable time, Lilian should fail to appear, I had formed my plan of
action; but it was important for the success of that plan that I should
not lose myself in the strange house, nor bring its owners to Margrave's
aid,--that I should surprise him alone and unawares. Half an hour, three
quarters, a whole hour thus passed. No sign of my poor wanderer; but
signs there were of the enemy from whom I resolved, at whatever risk, to
free and to save her. A window on the ground-floor, to the left of the
door, which had long fixed my attention because I had seen light through
the chinks of the shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back, the
casement opened, and I beheld Margrave distinctly; he held something in
his hand that gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards the mound on
which I stood, nor towards the path I had taken, but towards an open space
beyond the ruined wall to the right. Hid by a cluster of stunted shrubs I
watched him with a heart that beat with rage, not with terror. He seemed
so intent in his own gaze as to be unheeding or unconscious of all else.
I stole from my post, and, still under cover, sometimes of the broken
wall, sometimes of the shaggy ridges that skirted the path, crept on, on
till I reached the side of the house itself; then, there secure from his
eyes, should he turn them, I stepped over the ruined wall, scarcely two
feet high in that place, on--on towards the door. I passed the spot on
which the policeman had shrouded himself; he was seated, his back against
the ribs of the broken boat. I put my hand to his mouth that he might not
cry out in surprise, and whispered in his ear; he stirred not. I shook
him by the arm: still he stirred not. A ray of the moon fell on his face.
I saw that he was in a profound slumber. Persuaded that it was no natural
sleep, and that he had become useless to me, I passed him by. I was at
the threshold of the open door, the light from the window close by falling
on the ground; I was in the passage; a glimmer came through the chinks of
a door to the left; I turned the handle noiselessly, and, the next moment,