n the
bureau, without looking aside first either to the right or the left.

He had unlocked it, had pulled open the inner drawer, had taken out the
Hair Bracelet, and was just examining it closely by the light of his
taper (after having locked the bureau again)--when a faint sound on the
staircase of the house caught his ear.

At the same instant, a thin streak of candle-light flashed on him
through the narrow chink between the hardly-closed door and the
doorpost. It increased rapidly in intensity, as the sound of
softly-advancing footsteps now grew more and more distinct from the
stone passage leading to the interior of the house.

He had the presence of mind to extinguish his taper, to thrust the Hair
Bracelet into his pocket, and to move across softly from the bureau
(which stood against the lock-side doorpost) to the wall (which was by
the hinge-side doorpost); so that the door itself might open back upon
him, and thus keep him concealed from the view of any person entering
the room. He had the presence of mind to take these precautions
instantly; but he had not self-control enough to suppress the
involuntary exclamation which burst from his lips, at the moment when
the thin streak of candle-light first flashed into his eyes. A violent
spasmodic action contracted the muscles of his throat. He clenched his
fist in a fury of suppressed rage against himself, as he felt that his
own voice had turned traitor and betrayed him.

The light came close: the door opened--opened gently, till it just
touched him as he stood with his back against the wall.

For one instant his heart stopped; the next, it burst into action again
with a heave, and the blood rushed hotly through every vein all over
him, as his wrought-up nerves of mind and body relaxed together under
a sense of ineffable relief. He was saved almost by a miracle from the
inevitable consequence of the rash exclamation that had escaped him. It
was Madonna who had opened the door--it was the deaf and dumb girl whom
he now saw walking into the studio.

She had been taking her working materials out of the tobacco-pouch
in her own room before going to bed, and had then missed her
mother-of-pearl bodkin-case. Suspecting immediately that she must have
dropped it in the studio, and fearing that it might be trodden on and
crushed if she left it there until the next morning, she had now stolen
downstairs by herself to look for it. Her hair, not yet put up for the
night,