It was several minutes after Gray felt perfectly assured that the man, whoever he was, that had passed whistling by the cupboard door, had gone up to the highest story of the house before he could summon courage to leave his temporary hiding-place. The urgent necessity, however, of doing so while there was an opportunity came so forcibly upon his terror-stricken mind, that although he trembled so excessively as to be forced to cling to the banisters for support, he crawled from the place of shelter which had presented itself so providentially to him in such a moment of extremity, and treading as lightly as he could, while his whole frame was nearly paralysed by fear, he succeeded in reaching the room from which opened the small aperture to the vault where Ada awaited his coming. Jacob Gray’s mind at this moment embraced but one idea, indulged in but one hope, and that was to reach the vault in safety, and close the opening in the wall which had already escaped the scrutiny of Sir Frederick Hartleton. The extreme caution that he thought himself compelled to use in his movements made him slow in attaining his object, and each moment appeared an age of anxiety and awful suffering. Now he mounted the chair, and as he did so he heard, or fancied he heard, the descending footsteps of the stranger as he came from the upper story. Jacob Gray then trembled so excessively that he could scarcely contrive to put himself through the small panelled opening and when he did, his anxiety was so great and his nervousness so intense, that it was several moments before he could place his foot securely upon one of the rounds of the ladder. The shrill whistle of the man now sounded awfully distinct in his ears, and he fancied that he must have closed the panel scarcely an instant before the stranger entered the apartment. Then Jacob Gray laid his ear flatly against the wainscot to listen if more than one person was in the room, and gather from any conversation they might indulge in what were their objects and expectations in remaining so long in the ancient and dilapidated house. For some minutes the whistling continued, for that was an innocent amusement that Mr. Elias was fortunately partial to, and one to which he invariably resorted when anything of a disagreeable character absorbed his mind; and as now he could not withdraw his thoughts from the fact that he must fast until sunset, he whistled with an energy and a desperation proportioned to the exigency of the case. At length, however, from want of breath, or that he had gone through every tune he was acquainted with three times, he paused in his whistling, and uttered the simple and energetic apostrophe of,— “Well, I’m d—d!”