Receiving no response, she tapped again, then tried the knob, and, to her amazement, the door opened. For a moment they stood on the threshold, irresolute. A whiff of tobacco smoke brushed their nostrils. Virginia timidly stepped within, followed closely by Constance. The darkness was intense, the stillness profound. "Whew!" Virginia ejaculated, in a whisper. "The den reeks with tobacco smoke. He must be asleep." She softly closed the door and lighted one of the matches which she had been careful to provide herself with. "There is no one here," whispered Constance, in tones of terrifying disappointment. Up to that time she had religiously kept her promise to observe the strictest silence, but when in the dim light produced by the match, her eyes swiftly took in the untenanted room, her heart sank in chilly numbness. Virginia noted the famished, haunted look that had crept into her eyes, and as she turned away with a fresh pang in her heart, discovered the bottle and tumbler on the table. It suggested a clue, and she replied, in low tones, and in the most matter-of-fact manner, that, surprised herself, "He must be intoxicated, the beast." The coolness of the utterance had the effect, in a measure, of reassuring Constance, who then, discovering a closed door directly in front, breathlessly exclaimed: "That door must open to another room." It was at that moment that the light died out. Virginia stood stock still and listened. She pressed her left hand tight against her heart to still the terrible throbbing. She heard Constance grope her way to the partition door. She heard the nervous fingers on the framework. She heard the latch click. "Be careful, dear. Oh, be careful, dear!" admonished Virginia, in a whisper of frenzied anxiety--and then she heard the door pushed open. A moment of profound silence and then followed the sound of a step within. Constance stood beside Dorothy--with only the deep darkness and two feet of empty space separating them. Who shall say that the subtle power which impelled the mother on in the dense darkness, first to the door, then to open it, and then to step within beside her child, was not magnetic intuition? Virginia softly followed her to the door, produced a match and rubbed it against the casing. At that moment Constance was standing inside the threshold, her right hand still on the open door latch; her back to Virginia. She was looking straight ahead into the darkness. The scraping of the match caused her to turn her head. "Oh, Dorothy, darling!" was all that the poor heart-broken mother could utter. So sudden and great was the transport called forth by the discovery of Dorothy quietly sleeping near her elbow, that her senses grew dizzy, and as she sank to the floor on her trembling knees, convulsively outstretched her hands to clasp the face of her child.