While these thoughts were rushing through my brain, I had noiselessly opened the outer door, and now stood in the dressing-room, peering into the bedroom beyond. The door between the two was standing open; but a heavy curtain hung in the aperture, and by making a little slit in it by means of my penknife, I was enabled to command a view of the interior. At the farther end of the apartment lay Bertie asleep in his cot. Standing before him, clad in a long white wrapper, and with her auburn hair flowing over her shoulders, was the young mother herself; while at some paces from her stood Crawford, still in evening dress, and balancing in his fingers a long glittering dagger, that I recognised as one that usually hung in the library below. By this time he had dropped his angry tones, and was speaking in his accustomed pleasant fashion. ‘You know, dear,’ he was saying, ‘it really is necessary that we both drink some. Half a glassful of young and innocent blood, and we both shall keep young and happy for ever.’ ‘Won’t my blood do?’ asked the girl desperately. She stretched her bare arms towards him and forced a smile to her poor quivering lips. ‘You are much fonder of me, aren’t you, dear? I shall do much better.’ He laughed softly. ‘No, no, my darling; not you. I wouldn’t hurt you for all the gold of all the Indies.’ He stopped suddenly, as if struck by his own words. ‘Gold?’ he repeated. ‘Ah! yes, of course, I must have gold. Where did I put it now?’ He retreated a few steps, looking uneasily from side to side. ‘Perhaps you left it in the library.—Ring for James. Or go to Mr Lennox, Arthur; he will help you to find it.’ He laughed again—a low monotonous laugh, to which my hospital-work had but too well accustomed me, and then he moved nearer her, still balancing the dagger in his long nervous fingers. That terrible knife! If he had only put it down for a moment, I could have rushed in and secured it before turning to him; but as matters were, cruel experience taught me that the instant he caught sight of me, he would rush to the child, to carry his dreadful purpose into effect, and that the mother in all probability would fall the victim. On the other hand, I dared not quit my post to summon assistance, and so leave Beatrice entirely at his mercy. I glanced round the dressing-room, and the window-cord caught my eye. It was new and strong. I cut it as high as I could reach, and crept back to my hole at the curtain. Crawford was growing rapidly angry. ‘Give me that boy!’ he cried roughly. ‘Get out of the way, Beatrice, and let me have him;’ and he caught her by the arm and dragged her from the cot. ‘Arthur, Arthur! husband, sweetheart!’ She clasped both arms around his neck, and raised imploring eyes to his; but the sight of the thin white face only moved him to greater wrath. ‘It is all your fault I have not made you strong long ago,’ he exclaimed irritably. ‘You never laugh now, and you can’t sing, and you won’t dance.’