were no more than little
vignettes--Laurie talking to a severe-looking tall man with a sardonic
smile; Laurie having tea with Mrs. Stapleton; Laurie in an empty room,
looking at a closed door....

It was this last picture that recurred three or four times at the very
instant that the girl was drowsing off into sleep; and it had
therefore that particular vividness that characterizes the thoughts
when the conscious attention is dormant. It had too a strangely
perturbing effect upon her; and she could not imagine why.

After the third return of it her sense of humor came to the rescue: it
was too ridiculous, she said, to be alarmed at an empty room and
Laurie's back. Once more she turned on her side, away from the
firelight, and resolved, if it recurred again, to examine the details
closely.

Again the moments passed: thought followed thought, in those quiet
waves that lull the mind towards sleep; finally once more the picture
was there, clear and distinct.

Yes; she would look at it this time.

It was a bare room, wainscoted round the walls a few inches up,
papered beyond in some common palish pattern. Laurie stood in the
center of the uncarpeted boards, with his back turned to her, looking,
it seemed, with an intense expectation at the very dull door in the
wall opposite him. He was in his evening dress, she saw, knee-breeches
and buckles all complete; and his hands were clenched, as they hung
held out a little from his sides, as he himself, crouching a little,
stared at the door.

She, too, looked at the door, at its conventional panels and its brass
handle; and it appeared to her as if both he and she were expectant of
some visitor. The door would open presently, she perceived; and the
reason why Laurie was so intent upon the entrance, was that he, no
more than she, had any idea as to the character of the person who was
to come in. She became quite interested as she watched--it was a
method she followed sometimes when wooing sleep--and she began, in her
fancy, to go past Laurie as if to open the door. But as she passed him
she was aware that he put out a hand to check her, as if to hold her
back from some danger; and she stopped, hesitating, still looking, not
at Laurie, but at the door.

She began then, with the irresponsibility of deepening sleep, to
imagine instead what lay beyond the door--to perceive by intuitive
vision the character of the house. She got so far as understanding
that it was all as unfur