bed that night she thought of what Grace's husband had
said. She had a little difficulty with breathing, being a stout woman,
and a horror of suffocation. The idea of that handkerchief held over
her face was terrible. She loved her money and her jewels, but loved
more her comfort and her life.

"Once they stopped my breath, I should never wake up again!" she said
to herself; and, deciding to alter her usual procedure, she returned
her treasure from the bag hidden in her skirts to her jewel-case.

The play had been a moving one. Grace, very susceptible to emotion, had
laughed and cried beside her; but Auntie was a phlegmatic person. The
comedy was just make-believe. She thought more, as she undressed, of
Augustus's request for a loan than of the heart-stirring episodes of
the drama. She had been wise not to begin lending him money, but to say
at once, straight out, "_No._" He had asked for only a few pounds; if
she had given them, he would have gone on to ask for more, in all
probability. Auntie liked Grace well enough, rather better than most
people, perhaps; but Grace had pleased herself in getting married; the
man she had taken must keep her. He had no claim on Grace's Auntie.

With such thoughts in her mind, as soon as her head touched the pillow,
she slept.

She awoke with a sickly, suffocating smell in her nostrils; and her
eyes opened wide upon a face bent above her own. She had slept with a
small lamp burning beside her, and by its dim light it seemed to her
that the face was black.

As she gazed, the face receded. Its owner drew backwards, pulling one
empty hand from beneath her pillow. The other hand held the
handkerchief whose odour she had felt upon mouth and nostrils.

Auntie flew up in bed. "Burglar!" she cried.

It was the only word spoken between them. The whole incident was over
in a half-minute. By the time that epithet had burst without volition
from her lips the robber, with his black-veiled face, had slunk to the
door and was gone.

With an agility she had not displayed since girlhood, Auntie sprang
from the bed, and, clutching the bag containing her money and jewels,
furiously rang the bell.

Mrs Mellish, in her nightgown, came running into the room.

"Oh, Auntie! Are you ill? Are you on fire?" she cried.

The stout lady, strengthless and breathless, was lying in a chair, the
jewel-case clasped laxly with one arm.

"A robber has been here," she gasped. "A robber, with black on his
fa