So they sat, she holding in her lap the slate shut fast upon the pencil within, her fingers enforcing its closure; he gazing intently at the point of the scimitar-shaped paper-knife. She became aware of the slow, pompous tick of a tall clock in the hallway; of faint noises, as of activity in a pantry, proceeding from somewhere in the rear of the house and barely audible through the closed window. She had expected to see him stiffen, his eyes roll up or some such manifestation appear. Nothing of the kind happened. For a long time, a very long time, she watched him staring fixedly at the sharp end of the paper-cutter. Then she saw it waver, saw his eyes close and his head, propped against the back of the armchair, move ever so little sideways, as the neck-muscles relaxed. His hands opened, the knife dropped on his knee and he was to all appearances peacefully asleep. Presently his even, regular breathing was a sound more apparent than the tick of the clock outside. All of a sudden Mrs. Llewellyn felt herself ridiculous. Here she was, holding a childish toy, facing a strange man with whom she was entirely alone and who was apparently enjoying a needed snooze. She had an impulse to laugh and was on the point of rising, disembarrassing herself of her burden and leaving the house. At that instant she felt a movement between the fast-shut slates. They lay level upon her lap, firmly set. She had not jarred or tilted them, yet she felt the pencil move. Felt it move and heard it too. Her mood of impatient self-contempt and irritated derision was instantly obliterated under a wave of terrified awe. She controlled a spasm of panic, an impulse to let go her hold upon her frightful charge, to scream, to run away. Rigid, trembling, breathing quick, her heart hammering her ribs, she sat, her fingers gripping the slates, listening for another movement. It came. Faintly at first, she felt and heard it, then more distinctly. Slowly, very slowly, with intervals of silence, the bit of pencil crawled, tapped and scratched about. While listening to it, and still more while listening for it, she was under so terrific a tension that she felt if nothing happened to relieve her, she must faint or shriek. When she continued listening for a long, an interminable, an unbearable time and heard nothing but the clock in the hall and Vargas’ breathing in the room, she felt she was about to do both. Then the clairvoyant uttered a choked sound, the incipience of that feeble wailing groan or groaning wail of a sleeper in a nightmare. His feet moved, his undeformed leg stiffened, his hands clenched, his head rolled from side to side, he writhed, the effort expended at each successive groan was more and more excessive, each sound feebler and more pitiful. Then Mrs. Llewellyn did scream. Instantly Vargas struggled into a sitting posture, his face contorted, his eyes bulging, staring at her. “Did I speak, did I speak?” he gasped.