hout the evening he had of course been preoccupied by the
consciousness of having in his pocket bank-notes to a value unknown.
Several times he had sought for a suitable opportunity to disclose his
exciting secret. But he had found none. In practice he could not say
to his aunt, before Julian and Rachel: "Auntie, I picked up a lot of
bank-notes on the landing. You really ought to be more careful!" He
could not even in any way refer to them. The dignity of Mrs. Maldon
had intimidated him. He had decided, after Julian's announcement
of departure, that he would hand them over to her, simply and
undramatically and with no triumphant air, as soon as he and she
should for a moment be alone together. Then Mrs. Maldon vanished
upstairs. And she had not returned. Rachel also had vanished. And he
was waiting.

He desired to examine the notes, to let his eyes luxuriously rest upon
them, but he dared not take them from his pocket lest one or other of
the silent-footed women might surprise him by a sudden entrance. He
fingered them as they lay in their covert, and the mere feel of them,
raised exquisite images in his mind; and at the same time the whole
room and every object in the room was transformed into a secret
witness which spied upon him, disquieted him, and warned him. But
the fact that the notes were intact, that nothing irremediable had
occurred, reassured him and gave him strength, so that he could defy
the suspicions of those senseless surrounding objects.

Within the room there was no sound but the faint regular hiss of the
gas and an occasional falling together of coal in the weakening fire.
Overhead, from his aunt's bedroom, vague movements were perceptible.
Then these ceased, absolutely. The tension, increasing, grew too much
for him, and with a curt gesture, and a self-conscious expression
between a smile and a frown, he left the parlour and stood to listen
in the lobby. Not for several seconds did he notice the heavy ticking
of the clock, close to his ear, nor the chill draught that came under
the front door. He gazed up into the obscurity at the top of the
stairs. The red glow of the kitchen fire, in the distance to the right
of the stairs, caught his attention at intervals. He was obsessed,
almost overpowered, by the mysteriousness of the first floor. What had
happened? What was happening? And suddenly an explanation swept into
his brain--the obvious explanation. His aunt had missed the bank-notes
and was proba