she would cry out in alarm, but the same dead
silence followed.

Then, out of the silence, hammering on my eardrums, burst the loud
ticking of the little alarm-clock that I had left on the mantel of the
bedroom. I heard that, and it must have been ticking minutes before
the sound reached me; perhaps if I waited a little longer I should hear
her breathing.

The alarm-clock was one of that kind which, when set to "repeat,"
utters a peculiar little click every two hundred and eighth stroke
owing to a catch in the mechanism. Formerly it had annoyed me
inexpressibly, and I would lie awake for hours waiting for that tiny
sound. Now I could hear even that, and heard it repeat and repeat
itself; but I could not hear Jacqueline breathe.

I took the key of the apartment door from my pocket at last and fitted
it noiselessly into the lock. I stood there, trembling and irresolute.
I dared not turn the key. The hall door gave immediately upon the
rooms without a private passage, and at the moment when I opened the
door I should be practically inside my bedroom save for the intervening
curtain.

Once more I ventured:

"Jacqueline! Jacqueline!"

There was not the smallest answering stir within. And so, with shaking
fingers, I turned the key.

The door creaked open with a noise that must have sounded throughout
the empty house. I recollected then that it was impossible to keep it
shut without locking it. The landlord had long ago ceased to concern
himself with his tumble-down property.

I caught at the door-edge, missed it and, tripping over a rent in the
cheap mat that lay against the door inside, stumbled against the
table-edge and clung there.

And even after I had caught at it, and stayed my fall, that infernal
door went creaking, creaking backward till it brought up against the
wall.

The room was completely dark, except for a little patch of light high
up on the bedroom wall, which came through the hole the workmen had
made when they began demolishing the building. I hesitated a moment;
then I drew a match from my pocket and rubbed it softly into a flame
against my trouser leg.

I reached up to the gas above the table, turned it on, and lit the
incandescent mantle, lowering the light immediately. But even then
there was no sound from behind the curtains.

They hung down close together, so that I was able to see only the
gas-blackened ceiling above them and, underneath, the lower edge of the
bed linen,