“Hobart,” he said; “you know her. She is the maiden out of the moonbeams. The Rhamda, he is our enemy. Hobart, Charlotte. I know so much. I cannot tell you. You are two hours late. It's a strange thing. I have found it and I think I know. It came suddenly. The discovery of the great professor. Why didn't you come two hours earlier? We might have conquered.” He dropped his head upon his arms; then as suddenly he looked up. He drew the ring from his finger. “Give it to Charlotte,” he said. “It won't hurt her. Don't touch it yourself. Had I only known. Watson didn't know--” He straightened; he was tense, rigid, listening. “Do you hear anything? Listen! Can you hear? It's the old lady. There--” But there was not a sound; only the rumble of the streets, the ticking of the clock, and our heart-beats. Again he went through the counting. “Hobart!” “Yes, Harry.” “And Charlotte! The ring--ah, yet it was there, Keep it. Give it to no one. Two hours ago we might have conquered. But I had to keep the ring. It was too much, too powerful; a man may not wear it. Charlotte”--he took my hand and ran the ring upon my finger. “Poor Charlotte. Here is the ring. The most wonderful--” Again he dropped over. He was weak--there was something going from him minute by minute. “Water,” he asked. “Hobart, some water.” It was too pitiful. Harry, our Harry--come to a strait like this! Hobart rushed to another room with the tumbler. I could hear him fumbling. I stooped over Harry. But he held up his hand. “No, Charlotte, no. You must not. If--” He stopped. Again the strange attention, as if he was listening to something far off in the distance; the pupils of his hollow, worn, lustreless eyes were pin-points. He stood on his feet rigid, quivering; then he held up his hand. “Listen!” But there was nothing. It was just as before; merely the murmuring of the city night, and the clock ticking. “It's the dog! D'you hear her? And the old lady. Now listen, 'Two! Now there are two! Three! Three! Now there are three!' There--now.” He turned to me. “Can you hear it, Charlotte? No? How strange. Perhaps--” He pointed to the corner of the room. “That paper. Will you--” I shall always go over that moment. I have thought over it many times and have wondered at the sequence. Had I not stepped across the library, what would have happened? What was it. I had stooped to pick up the piece of paper. There came a queer, cracking, snapping sound, almost audible, I have a strange recollection of Harry standing up by the side of the desk--a flitting vision. An intuition of some terrible force. It was out of nothing--nowhere--approaching. I turned about. And I saw it--the dot of blue.