He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask Mr. Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to the drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, and from the last into the conservatory. The man went down and finished his second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, finding himself in danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned back into the third room, threw himself on a couch, and fell fast asleep. He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was some time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he recognized that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the house well, and would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. It was foolish, but Tom was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked down a small table with a great crash of china, and, losing his equanimity, rushed for the stair. Happily the hall lamp was still alight, and he found no trouble with bolts or lock: the door was not any way secured. The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a gush of joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent streets with something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, until, alas! the wind, at the first turning, let him know that he had left his hat behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which was now beginning to glow unsuspected--that of a fever whose fuel had been slowly gathering for some time. He opened the door with his pass-key, and hurried up the stair, his long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he felt as if he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his wife. He opened the door of the sitting-room--and there on the floor lay Letty and little Tom, as I have already told. "Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary. "I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in this house." "Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland--perhaps not from Mrs. Redmain; but the servants talk of most things, and I have not heard a word--" "How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the house?--And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no consequence," she added. "Now it is different." This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing was clear--that, if the ring was not lost till after she left--and of so much she was sure--it could not be Tom that had taken it, for he was then ill in bed. Something to this effect she managed to say.