One must go to bed at some time or other, however puzzled and pondering one may be; and in furtherance of this end, Esther, having reached this turn in her reflections, begins to undress. In so doing she misses a locket containing Jack's picture, which she always wears round her neck. She must have dropped it downstairs, where perhaps some housemaid's clumsy foot may tread upon it, and mar the dear, ugly young face within. She must go and look for it, though the clock is striking one. She takes up her candle, and runs lightly downstairs. The gas is out. Great shadows from behind come up alongside, and then stretch ahead of her; the statues glimmer ghostly chill from their dark pedestals. With a shock of frightened surprise she sees a stream of light issuing through the half-open door of the morning-room. Is it burglars, or are the flowers giving a ball, as in Andersen's fair, fanciful tale? She creeps gently up, and peeps in. The lamp still burns on the centre table, and pacing up and down, up and down, as she has been doing overhead, is a man buried in deepest thought. Fear gives place to a great, pleasant shyness. "I--I--I have lost my locket," she stammers. He gives a tremendous start. "You up still!" he says, in astonishment. "Lost your locket, have you? Oh! by-the-by, I found it just now; here it is. Do you know (with a smile) I could not resist the temptation of looking to see who you had got inside it. Are you very angry?" "Very!" she answers, drooping her eyes under his. She could sit and stare into Bob's eyes by the hour together, if she liked, only that it would be rather a dull amusement; with St. John it is different. "Don't go; stay and talk a minute. It is so pleasant to think that we are the only conscious, sentient beings in the house--all the others sleeping like so many pigs," he says, coming over to her with an excited look on his face, such as calm, slow-pulsed English gentlemen are not wont to wear. "No, no, I cannot--I must not." She has taken the bracelets off her arms, and the rose from her hair: there she stands in her ripe, fresh beauty, with only the night and St. John to look at her. "Five minutes," he says, with pleading humility, but putting his back against the door as he speaks. "If you _prevent_ my going, of course I cannot help myself," she answers, putting on a little air of offended dignity to hide her tremulous embarrassment. "Don't be offended! Do you know" (leaving his post of defence to follow her)--"do you know what I have been doing ever since you went--_not_ to bed apparently?" "Drinking brandy and soda-water, probably" (looking rather surly, and affecting to yawn). "That would have been hardly worth mentioning. I have been wondering whether my luck is on the turn. I have been da----I mean very unlucky all my life. I never put any money on a horse that he was not sure to be nowhere. Luck does turn, sometimes, doesn't it? Do you think mine is turning?" "How can I tell?"