It was a task exactly to her taste. She took the greatest pleasure in making herself look as much as possible like a young man, and as she gazed at herself in the broken bit of looking-glass fastened to the wall, she said aloud, "Upon my word, Gracie, you make a very pretty boy!" She wore a great many trinkets, which she wrapped in paper, and put into her pockets, but the novelty of her disguise, and the inconvenient space in which she effected it, caused her to drop two of these, a ring and an earring, and although she searched the floor carefully, she could not find them. Her hair she twisted into a tight knot at the top of her head, and the wideawake completely covered it. Richard Manx made his appearance at the trap-door above, and asked if she was ready. She answered that she was, and he assisted her up, lifting her, indeed, almost bodily from the chairs upon which she stood. "What a little lump of weakness you are!" he exclaimed. "You can't weigh above a hundred pounds." Carefully he led her over the roof, and down the trap-door, into the next house. Standing in the dark with him in the garret of this tenement, he felt that she trembled. "If you are going to show the white feather," he whispered, "you had better turn back. There is time even now." Little did she imagine how much hung upon the opportunity offered her. She refused it, saying that she had experienced a slight chill, and that she would go on; so he led her, white-faced now and shaking in every limb, down the stairs to the room in which her husband had been murdered. Its appearance, while it bewildered, afforded her relief. Had it been in order, as she had seen it when her husband had occupied it, she could not have controlled her agitation; but it was so torn up, the work of destruction had been so wanton, that she could scarcely recognise it as the same room. "Have you any brandy, Pelham?" she asked, careful, as he had directed her, not to raise her voice. He had a bottle with him, and he gave her some in a glass, upon which her courage returned, and she shook her head defiantly, as much as to say, "Who cares?" "I haven't been idle, you see," said Pelham, pointing around. "Amuse yourself while I do what is necessary." What was "necessary" was the villainous work of scattering the gunpowder about, disposing of the pitch, and pouring the oil upon the walls and flooring of the passage. At the conclusion of this part of his scheme there was still a great deal of inflammable material left, and these he placed aside, the pitch and the oil in the tins, and the gunpowder, loose, in its paper packet, in the room in which he was at work. "Are you sure there is no one but ourselves in the house?" asked Grace. "Listen for yourself," replied Pelham. "If you like you can go downstairs and look. I'll ensure you against anything but ghosts and fire."