Not until the rich and mellow chime had merged into the stillness did the
intruder dare again to draw breath. Coming as it had the very moment that
the door had closed noiselessly behind her, the double stroke had sounded
to her like a knell: or, perhaps more like the prelude to the wild alarum
of a tocsin, first striking her heart still with terror, then urging it
into panic flutterings.

But these, as the minutes drew on, marked only by the dull methodic ticking
of the clock, quieted; and at length she mustered courage to move from the
door, against which she had flattened herself, one hand clutching the knob,
ready to pull it open and fly upon the first aggressive sound.

In the interval her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. The study
door showed a pale oblong on her right; to her left, and a little toward
the rear of the flat, the door of Maitland's bed-chamber stood ajar. To
this she tiptoed, standing upon the threshold and listening with every
fiber of her being. No sounds as of the regular respiration of a sleeper
warning her, she at length peered stealthily within; simultaneously she
pressed the button of an electric hand-lamp. Its circumscribed blaze
wavered over pillows and counterpane spotless and undisturbed.

Then for the first time she breathed freely, convinced that she had been
right in surmising that Maitland would not return that night.

Since early evening she had watched the house from the window of a
top-floor hall bedroom in the boarding-house opposite. Shortly before seven
she had seen Maitland, stiff and uncompromising in rigorous evening dress,
leave in a cab. Since then only once had a light appeared in his rooms; at
about half-after nine the janitor had appeared in the study, turning up the
gas and going to the telephone.