When he awoke and found himself in darkness, he could not for a time understand where he was. The line of light which had comforted him was gone, and with it the homely sounds of kitchen life. He stretched his sore limbs in the darkness and shivered, looking timidly for the outline of a window. Finding none, he put out his hand to feel for his bedfellow, and lit instead on the rough surface of the door, against which he had sunk down in his sleep until only his head rested upon it. The touch recalled everything to the boy's mind. With a low whimper of alarm he sat up, and crouching against the door, which seemed some kind of company, listened, holding his breath. All was still in the house, and he presently comprehended that it was night and that the family had gone to bed, leaving him there. Use and sleep had rendered him in a way familiar with his prison, and he did not on making this discovery break into any loud wailing. Instead, he huddled himself with a moan into as small a space as possible, and not daring to put out his hand again lest it should rest on some horror, some crawling thing or clammy hand, he tried with all his might to go to sleep. He was dozing off and had almost succeeded, when a slight noise aroused him. In a moment a light shone under the door. He scrambled eagerly to his feet, and tapped softly. "Gridley!" he whispered, "Gridley! Is that you?" No one answered, but the bearer of the light seemed to pause in the middle of the floor as if struck by a sudden thought. Then Jack heard the bolts of the outer door withdrawn, and even in his closet felt a rush of cold air. Some one was going out! "Gridley! Gridley!" he cried desperately. "Let me out, will you? Please let me out." But Gridley, if Gridley it was, took no heed. The light disappeared, and Jack heard the door close as softly as it had been opened. He sat down, whimpering and wondering. The use of candles was so uncommon in that house that he could not remember to have once seen one lighted, though he knew that a lanthorn hung behind the kitchen door. Who then was this who used them, and went in and out by night with a foot fall which scarcely broke the stillness? The lad felt his hair move and his skin creep as he crouched trembling in the darkness. Then, on a sudden, he heard the door creak afresh and the footstep return--the same stealthy, cautious footstep, it seemed to him, which he had heard before. But this time there was no light. None the less was he sure that some one was now standing in the middle of the floor, within a yard or two of his place of confinement. His ears, strained to the utmost, caught the sound of hurried breathing close to him, and besides he had that ill-defined sense of another's presence which we are all apt to feel. Terrified as he was, he still clung desperately to the idea that it was Gridley, and he called the man's name again, his voice shaking with fear. To his surprise he this time got an answer.