I saw that he was quite beside himself, but ventured upon one remonstrance. "It will be unwise to rouse comment," I said. "If that box was taken for the death it holds, the one restraint most likely to act upon the young girl who retains it will be the conventionalities of her position and the requirements of the hour. Any break in the settled order of things--anything which would give her a moment by herself--might precipitate the dreadful event we fear. Remember, one turn of the hand and all is lost. A drop is quickly swallowed." "Frightful!" he murmured, the perspiration oozing from his forehead. "What a wedding-eve! And they are laughing down there; listen to them. I even imagine I hear Gilbertine's voice. Is there unconsciousness in it or just the hilarity of a distracted mind bent on self-destruction? I can not tell; the sound conveys no meaning to me." "She has a sweet, true face," I said, "and she wears a very beautiful smile to-night." He sprang to his feet. "Yes, yes; a smile that maddens me; a smile that tells me nothing, nothing! Walter, Walter, don't you see that, even if that cursed box remains unopened and nothing ever comes of its theft, the seeds of distrust are sown thick in my breast, and I must always ask: 'Was there a moment when my young bride shrank from me enough to dream of death?' That is why I can not go through the mockery of this rehearsal." "Can you go through the ceremony of marriage?" "I must--if nothing happens to-night." "And then?" I spoke involuntarily. I was thinking not of him, but of myself. But he evidently found in my words an echo of his own thought. "Yes, it is the _then_," he murmured. "Well may a man quail before that _then_." He did go down stairs, however, and later on, went through the rehearsal very much as I had expected him to do, quietly and without any outward show of emotion. As soon as possible after this the company separated, Sinclair making me an imperceptible gesture as he went up stairs. I knew what it meant, and was in his room as soon as the fellows who accompanied him had left him alone. "The danger is from now on," he cried, as soon as I had closed the door behind me. "I shall not undress to-night." "Nor I." "Happily we both have rooms by ourselves in this great house. I shall put out my light and then open my door as far as need be. Not a move in the house will escape me." "I will do the same." "Gilbertine--God be thanked--is not alone in her room. Little Miss Lane shares it with her." "And Dorothy?" "Oh, she is under the strictest bondage night and day. She sleeps in a little room off her aunt's. Do you know her door?" I shook my head. "I will pass down the hall and stop an instant before the two doors we are most interested in. When I pass Gilbertine's I will throw out my right hand."