She awoke with a sickly, suffocating smell in her nostrils; and her eyes opened wide upon a face bent above her own. She had slept with a small lamp burning beside her, and by its dim light it seemed to her that the face was black. As she gazed, the face receded. Its owner drew backwards, pulling one empty hand from beneath her pillow. The other hand held the handkerchief whose odour she had felt upon mouth and nostrils. Auntie flew up in bed. "Burglar!" she cried. It was the only word spoken between them. The whole incident was over in a half-minute. By the time that epithet had burst without volition from her lips the robber, with his black-veiled face, had slunk to the door and was gone. With an agility she had not displayed since girlhood, Auntie sprang from the bed, and, clutching the bag containing her money and jewels, furiously rang the bell. Mrs Mellish, in her nightgown, came running into the room. "Oh, Auntie! Are you ill? Are you on fire?" she cried. The stout lady, strengthless and breathless, was lying in a chair, the jewel-case clasped laxly with one arm. "A robber has been here," she gasped. "A robber, with black on his face, and a chloroformed handkerchief." "Oh, Auntie! Auntie! Never!" "Where is your husband? Is he in your room?" No. For Augustus, ever a restless sleeper, had thought he heard something stirring in the room beneath, and, later, a footstep on the stair. He had risen, therefore, had taken the pistol, which always lay loaded by his side, and gone down to investigate. Auntie opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without a sound; her eyes, with their most vacant stare, were turned upon her niece; she gathered her underlip loosely beneath her teeth. It was not until the servants, also aroused by the bell, but having waited to dress, came to Auntie's room, that Mrs Mellish was at liberty to run down to seek her husband. There was no doubt about the house having been entered, she said, on her return; Auntie had by no means _dreamt_ the burglar. ("No!" interpolated Auntie, with a solemnly emphatic shake of the head.) A window broken in the kitchen, and a wide-open sash had showed the exploring Gussie the means of ingress. In the dining-room it was evident that a couple of glasses of brandy had been drunk, but none of the silver on the sideboard had been touched. Too clearly, Auntie and her possessions had been the objects of the attempt. Auntie nodded gloomy affirmation, trembling and gasping in her chair. Where was Gussie, she asked; and showed relief and satisfaction when told he had gone to give notice of the affair to the police. But not even the promise that the servants and Grace would sit beside her and watch her while she slept would induce the poor lady to go to bed again. "Not in this house. Never again in this house," she protested. And even when morning brought a cessation of panic and a certain sense of security to all, she could not be persuaded to change her mind.