The doctor turned off the electric light, and returned to his own bright part of the room. The bed in which Awdrey lay was now in complete shadow. Dr. Rumsey opened a medical treatise, but he did not read. On the contrary, the book lay unnoticed on his knee, while he himself stared into the blaze of the fire--his brows were contracted in anxious thought. He was thinking of the sleeper and his story--of the tragedy which all this meant to Margaret. Then, by a queer chain of connection, his memory reverted to Mrs. Everett--her passionate life quest--her determination to consider her son innocent. The queer scene she had described as taking place between Hetty and herself returned vividly once more to the doctor's retentive memory. "Is it possible that Awdrey can in any way be connected with that tragedy?" he thought. "It looks almost like it. According to his own showing, and according to his wife's showing, the strange symptoms which have brought him to his present pass began about the date of that somewhat mysterious murder. I have thought it best to make light of that lapse of memory which worries the poor fellow so much in connection with his walking-stick, but is there not something in it after all? Can he possibly have witnessed the murder? Would it be possible for him to throw any light upon it and save Everett? If I really thought so? But no, the hypothesis is too wild." Dr. Rumsey turned again to his book. He was preparing a lecture of some importance. As he read he made many notes. The sleeper in the distant part of the room slept on calmly--the night gradually wore itself away--the fire smouldered in the grate. "If this night passes without any peculiar manifestation on Awdrey's part, I shall begin to feel assured that the wife has overstated the case," thought the doctor. He bent forward as this thought came to him to replenish the fire. In the act of doing so he made a slight noise. Whether this noise disturbed the sleeper or not no one can say--Awdrey abruptly turned in bed, opened his eyes, uttered a heavy groan, and then sat up. "There it is again," he cried. "Margaret, are you there?--Margaret, come here." Dr. Rumsey immediately approached the bed. "Your wife is not in the room, Awdrey," he said--"you remember, don't you, that you are passing the night with me." Awdrey rubbed his eyes--he took no notice of Dr. Rumsey's words. He stared straight before him in the direction of one of the windows.