He seemed to be in a sort of coma. Only after she twitched his sleeve repeatedly did he unclose his dangerous eyes. And then he merely muttered fretfully that he was too weak to move and meant to sleep where he lay until morning. “You can’t remain here all night,” she said. “I can’t permit that. Do you understand, Stuart?” But he only turned over, muttering incoherencies, and buried his dishevelled head in his ragged arms. Not knowing what to do, she went wearily back to her bed-room. Twice, trying to think what to do, she fell asleep in her chair. The second waking found her on her feet, blind with sleep, but with instinct leading her to lock and bolt her bed-room door.... That is the last she remembered for a while. * * * * * She awoke, lying diagonally across her bed, fully dressed, in the dull, rosy glow of her little night-lamp. Something was scraping and scratching at her door. She turned her head, saw the door-knob twisting very softly, now this way, now that. She got up from the bed and went quickly to the door. “If you don’t leave this house,” she said in a low voice, “I shall telephone for a policeman.” “Take me back, Eris,” he whined. “As God sees me, I love you! I’ll work my fingers to the bone for you----” “Leave this house,” she repeated. He tried the door again, gently, then wrenched at the knob. Suddenly he threw his full weight against the door. But they wrought well in the days when that old house was built. Listening, she heard him moving off, softly, and realised he had removed his shoes. For a long while she continued to listen, but heard no further sound from him. There was not the slightest sense of fear in her, merely loathing and weariness unutterable. She went back, finally, to the bed and lay down across it. Four o’clock struck in the living-room. After that she remembered listening and trying to remain awake. * * * * * She had been sleeping heavily for two hours when Eddie Carter, alias E. Stuart Graydon, tried the bolt with the blade of a kitchen knife. He had contrived, also, to fashion another instrument out of a steel fork. Neither of these worked. As half-past five struck in the living-room, where he was seated, he concluded that the other plan had become inevitable. He had hoped it might be avoided. But the girl he now had to deal with was no longer the ignorant, impressionable child he had so easily moulded to his fancy. There were two matters which preoccupied this man: the first, a genuine passion for the girl-wife he had been forced to abandon. Whatever this sentiment was,--love or a lesser impulse,--it had been born the moment he lost her; and it had painfully persisted through those prison months. The second matter which absorbed him was hatred for the man who had sent him to a second term in prison. The charge was forgery; the firm of Smull, Shill & Co. procured his arrest.