as the same stillness as before.

Harry now waited for so long a time that his patience was quite
exhausted, and he resolved, come what might, to go up again to the
end of the passage and wait there. He knew the way now well enough.
He left his torch and boots behind, and, climbing up, went along the
passage, half expecting to encounter the woman, and ready to seize
her and question her. But he found no one. All was still. He reached
the chimney of the other room, and then, as before, he looked down.

He saw the moonbeams lying on the floor; he heard the slow, low,
regular breathing of sleepers, one of whom seemed still to be in that
troubled dream. Familiarity with these surroundings had now made him
bold.

Should he venture now, or wait longer?

Wait! Why wait? When could he hope to have a better time than the
present?

But one of the women was no doubt awake--that one who had already
visited him.

What of that? He cared not; he could not wait. Perhaps she was a
friend--it seemed like it. At any rate he was resolved to risk it. To
go back was not to be thought of. All his nerves were so wrought up,
and to such an intense pitch of excitement, that sleep was impossible
and any longer waiting intolerable. He determined to risk all now.

And for what?

For the chance, not of escape, but of communicating with Katie.

The fact is, as any one may see, Harry was getting in a very bad way
about Katie. Else why should he make such a point about seeing her,
and run such a risk, and make even the chance of his personal safety
a secondary consideration? And what for? What did Katie care for him?
What indeed?

These very questions had occurred to the mind of Harry himself, but
they had one and all been promptly answered by that volatile young
man in a way that was quite satisfactory to himself. For he said to
himself that he was a poor lone man; an unfortunate captive in a
dungeon; in the hands of a merciless foe; under sentence of death;
with only a week to live; and that he wanted sympathy, yes, pined for
it--craved, yearned, hungered and thirsted for sweet sympathy. And it
seemed to him as though no one could give him that sympathy for which
he pined so well as Katie. And therefore he was going down to her on
this desperate errand for the sole purpose of seeing her, and perhaps
of communicating with her.

A thought occurred to him at the eleventh hour, while he was on the
verge of the descent, and that was to wri