seen the ghostly thing which was Annette disappear through the floor.
That floor space was bare; a rug, rolled up, rested against the further
wainscot. Blake took it in, and smiled at Rosalie as though to say,
"everything is ready I see!" Then for a minute they stood immobile,
listening. A murmur of conversation came up from below, and in the room
behind the portieres someone was breathing, lightly, regularly. Rosalie
touched his arm and beckoned. Moving without sound, they lifted the
portieres, stepped within.

No light inside that room, except the low radiance from a prone figure
by the outer wall. It seemed at first that this ghost of Annette lay
suspended between heaven and earth. Blake's mind put down the awe which
was stealing over his senses. His eyes sharpened until he could make
out a few details.

At the right, dimly suggested, was a disordered bed. Annette lay on a
couch. The robes swathed her from head to foot, but the veil over her
face was parted as though to give her air. Her eyes were closed; her
arms, with something strained and stretched in their attitude, lay
along her sides.

And now Rosalie had her lips at his ear.

"Quick!" she said.

Blake crept to Annette's side and spoke in a low tone.

"Annette, this is I--Walter, your lover. You belong to me. I revoke no
other commands, but you are to listen to me also and do as I tell you.
Answer me first. You have been commanded to rise when you hear music?"

As by the miracle of one speaking in normal tones out of sleep, Annette
answered:

"Yes."

"Speak low. You have been commanded to enter the other room then, turn
out the light, lift a trap, let down a rope ladder, descend it, and say
certain things?"

"Yes." The tone was less than a whisper.

"Have you been given anything special to say to-night--has anything
been impressed upon you?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"After the rest, I am to say: 'Robert, they tell me that the great
danger is near. They give me a message which I do not understand--"Declare
that dividend tomorrow." You do not know the awful things which will
come if you do not.'"

Blake could hear Rosalie catch her breath at this. It came to him,
also, that he had intervened at the very climax of Mrs. Markham's
operation on Robert H. Norcross. But he went on firmly:

"Obey that. Do as you were told. But do something else. So that you
will remember, I am going to whisper it in your ear."

Blake leaned over for a minute, and