le even in
the careful Miss Knollys led me to expect a culmination of some kind
before the night was over, I not only hid my recognition of this fact,
but succeeded in sufficiently impressing them with the contentment which
my own petty employments afforded me (I am never idle even in other
persons' houses) for them to spare me the harassment of their alternate
visits, which, in their present mood and mine promised little in the way
of increased knowledge of their purposes and much in the way of
distraction and the loss of that nerve upon which I calculated for a
successful issue out of the possible difficulties of this night.

Had I been a woman of ordinary courage, I would have sounded three
premonitory notes upon my whistle before blowing out my candle, but
while I am not lacking, I hope, in many of the finer feminine qualities
which link me to my sex, I have but few of that sex's weaknesses and
none of its instinctive reliance upon others which leads it so often to
neglect its own resources. Till I saw good reasons for summoning the
police, I proposed to preserve a discreet silence, a premature alarm
being in their eyes, as I knew from many talks with Mr. Gryce, the one
thing suggestive of a timid and inexperienced mind.

Hannah had brought me a delicious cup of tea at ten, the influence of
which was to make me very drowsy at eleven, but I shook this weakness
off and began my night's watch in a state of stern composure which I
verily believe would have awakened Mr. Gryce's admiration had it been
consonant with the proprieties for him to have seen it. Indeed the very
seriousness of the occasion was such that I could not have trembled if I
would, every nerve and faculty being strained to their utmost to make
the most of every sound which might arise in the now silent and
discreetly darkened house.

I had purposely omitted the precaution of pushing my bed against the
door of my room, as I had done the night before, being anxious to find
myself in a position to cross its threshold at the least alarm. That
this would come, I felt positive, for Hannah in leaving my room had
taken pains to say, in unconscious imitation of what Miss Knollys had
remarked the night before:

"Don't let any queer sounds you may hear disturb you, Miss Butterworth.
There's nothing to hurt you in this house; nothing at all." An
admonition which I am sure her young mistresses would not have allowed
her to utter if they had been made acquainted