So wrapped up was he in the exquisite pleasure of his preparations that he was quite insensible to the deliberate symmetry he had brought about—a circumstance which may prove a great deal, or nothing at all. When he had done he fell back and surveyed his handiwork as an artist before a masterpiece. And outside rumbled the voices of the clocks saying the hour was eleven. “Eleven! She will be here in a moment,” he thought. A sudden nervousness seized him. He did not know why or what it was about. He touched his pocket to be sure the matches were there. He wondered if she were all right, and had crossed Long Acre and Oxford Street safely—they were busiest in theatre traffic at that hour, and private cars and taxis paid little heed to pedestrians. It would be so easy for her to be knocked down and run over. He could picture the curious, jostling crowds that would gather round, the blue helmets of the police in the centre—and the gaunt ambulance which would appear from nowhere. “God! What a fool I am,” he exclaimed. “She’s all right—of course she is.” Yet, despite this guarantee of her safety, thoughts of possible disaster raced across his mind. Memory of his visit to the Morgue in Paris arose and would not be banished. He recalled what he had said that day: “Death is so horribly conclusive.” Conclusive! Suppose it were visited upon her?—something would die in him, too. He asked himself what that something would be, but could find no answer. It would be something so lately come to life that he did not know it well enough to name. Once more his eyes fell upon the table, and the fears vanished. Of course she would come—of course nothing would happen to her. Even though it were against her will, she would be drawn by what he had prepared. He blew out the lamp, and crossing the room opened the window and leant over the sill to wait. It was a sweet night, starred and silent. Smoke rose ghostily from the silhouetted stacks, and a faint, murmurous wind, which seemed to have stolen from a Devon lane, touched his hair to movement. North, south, east, and west stretched the roofs of London, and in imagination he could hear the soft rustle as the dwellers beneath tucked themselves in for the night.