hat mysterious creaking in the
furniture, by those still small ghostly sounds from inanimate bodies,
which we have all been startled by, over and over again, while lingering
at our book after the rest of the family are asleep in bed, while
waiting up for a friend who is out late, or while watching alone through
the dark hours in a sick chamber. Excepting such occasional night-noises
as these, so familiar, yet always so strange, the perfect tranquillity
of the studio remained undisturbed for nearly an hour after Mr. Blyth
had left it. No neighbors came home in cabs, no bawling drunken men
wandered into the remote country fastnesses of the new suburb. The
night-breeze, blowing in from the fields, was too light to be audible.
The watch-dog in the nurseryman's garden hard by, was as quiet on this
particular night as if he had actually barked himself dumb at last.
Outside the house, as well as inside, the drowsy reign of old primeval
Quiet was undisturbed by the innovating vagaries of the rebel, Noise.

Undisturbed, till the clock in the hall pointed to a quarter past
eleven. Then there came softly and slowly up the iron stairs that led
from the back garden to the studio, a sound of footsteps. When these
ceased, the door at the lower end of the room was opened gently from
outside, and the black bulky figure of Mat appeared on the threshold,
lowering out gloomily against a back-ground of starry sky.

He stepped into the painting-room, and closed the door quietly behind
him; stood listening anxiously in the darkness for a moment or two;
then pulling from his pocket the wax taper and the matches which he had
bought that afternoon, immediately provided himself with a light.

While the wick of the taper was burning up, he listened again. Except
the sound of his own heavy breathing, all was quiet around him. He
advanced at once to the bureau, starting involuntarily as he brushed
by Mr. Blyth's lay figure with the Spanish hat and the Roman toga; and
cursing it under his breath for standing in his way, as if it had been
a living creature. The door leading from the studio into the passage of
the house was not quite closed; but he never noticed this as he passed
to the bureau, though it stood close to the chink left between the door
and the post. He had the false key in his hand; he knew that he should
be in possession of the Hair Bracelet in another moment; and, his
impatience for once getting the better of his cunning, he pounced o