An hour went by; it was nearly half-past two, and before very long the early summer morning would be breaking in the east. What she did must be done quickly, and with a calmness born of utter despair she made her preparations. The box in which her diamonds were kept was laid empty in her drawer, which stood open, its contents tossed up promiscuously, and her empty purse lying upon the table. The emeralds and pearls were put carefully away unharmed, as were some smaller articles of jewelry. Then with trembling, ice-cold hands she made herself ready for bed, and laid her throbbing head upon her pillow just as the clock struck three. She had taken from a shelf, and looked at a bottle of laudanum, and thought how easy it would be to end it all, but she dared not do it when she thought seriously about it. She believed in a hereafter; in the Heaven where Annie had gone, and she could not deliberately throw away all chance of ever entering there. “I may repent; the thief did at the last hour,” she said, as she drew the bedclothes about her, and felt that she was ready for the first scene in the strange drama about to be acted. CHAPTER XLII. THE ALARM. Neither Mrs. Burton nor Maude had slept very soundly that night. Both had been haunted with a conviction that they heard something about the house, stealthy footsteps Mrs. Burton thought, and she shook her snoring spouse vigorously, and tried to make him get up, receiving for reply, “Pish, only one of your fidgets; go to sleep, do, and let me alone.” And so poor, timid Mrs. Burton listened until her ears ached, and, hearing nothing more, made up her mind that she had been mistaken, and there really was no cause for alarm. Maude, too, had taken fright, and knocked softly at Georgie’s door, but Georgie was in the woodbine arbor, and did not hear her, and she went back to bed and fell asleep again, and was just dreaming that her wedding had proved to be her funeral, when a piercing shriek rang through the house, followed by another and another, each louder, more appalling than the other, until every sleeper was awake and huddling together in the halls, demanded what it was, and where the screams came from. Jack was the first to decide that the noise was in Georgie’s room, and entering through the unlocked door, he saw his sister sitting up in bed; her eyes rolling wildly, her long black hair falling over her night-dress, and her whole face the very image of terror, as she shrieked, “The burglar—the man—been here—in this room—look—where he went and what he did. Oh! Jack, Jack, I am dying, I shall die!”