I was the only guest, and we retired early. I had, of course, seen nothing of Esther Lane. As I walked on the terrace and smoked my cigar I wondered if she were thinking of me. I paused at a spot which was at the extreme end of one of the horns of a semicircle. At the end opposite to me were the rooms in which she was nursing her invalid. I stood looking at them thoughtfully. I was thinking of what Lady Gascoyne had said as to the disease now being at its most infectious stage. Contact, or the use of the same article, such as a towel or a handkerchief, might convey the infection. I might be doing something to advance my cause instead of idly puffing at my cigar. The invalid’s rooms were several hundred feet away, and to reach them I should have to scale a parapet some ten feet in height, but it was no more than I could manage. I walked slowly round the semicircle. The night was strangely mild, and it was not improbable that the windows would be open. I knew the apartments. They had once been occupied by a mad Earl Gascoyne, and had in his day been securely barred. These bars had, however, long since been removed, and I remembered thinking the rooms almost the pleasantest in the castle. They were some distance from the rest of the living part. When I reached the terrace I saw that there was a narrow stone staircase which I had not before noticed. At the top of this was an iron gate which would have to be climbed. Just then I heard steps on the terrace above me, and I had hardly time to draw into the shadow of a buttress when Esther Lane appeared, leaning over the low wall above my head. I threw down my cigar and stamped on it, for it might have been its scent borne on the night air which had attracted her. She looked about her for a few seconds and went back. I waited for an hour or so until the lights were turned down for the night. I wondered which of the two women was watching by the bedside of the invalid. After a time I ascended the staircase and surveyed the iron gate at the top. It looked rickety, and it would be difficult to climb over it without making a noise. If the trained nurse found me it would not be easy to explain my presence.