All at once there was a sound. Someone was in the room. She felt herself trembling from head to foot; she clung to the curtains as for dear life. It was only after some consideration that she understood that the visitor was probably a mouse. She had been used to mice at the convent. There they had scampered about all over the place; sometimes about the room in which she had slept. The convent was old; the hotel was old; evidently the small marauders had taken up their quarters in the one building as they had done in the other. The new-comer was joined by others. She had an impression that, after a while, numbers of mice were in the room. If they were conscious of her presence they ignored it. Certainly they cared nothing for the dead. She wondered if they were attracted by the smell of the champagne which had been spilt upon the floor when the stranger broke the bottle. Suddenly there were sounds quite close to her feet; she felt as if something ran over one of them; as if a fresh detachment were coming out of some crevice in the wood panelling of the recess in which she was standing. Was she to be shut up all night--alone with the dead, while the mice held festival? Was she to remain there, upright? Or should she seek rest on the floor? On the floor the mice might run to and fro across her body. She did not mind that so much as the thought that her guardian might be peering down at her from his place upon the table. There was a couch on her left; should she take refuge on that? To what purpose? Even suppose she slept, when they came in the morning would she rather that they should find her on it asleep or waking? If they were to find her at all, then it would be better, on all accounts, that she should turn on the lights at once, ring the bell, and bid them do with her what they would. Besides, she would be afraid to go to sleep with that in the room. The whole place was full of it. Each time her glance strayed, on this side or that, seeking, in the darkness, for she knew not what, with, as it were, an irresistible jerk, her head was brought right round again, so that she had to look towards where she knew the table was, with its burden. She could not remain standing through the night; she dare not lie upon the floor; she dare not take refuge on the couch; she was unwilling to venture out from the sheltering curtains into the room; for all she could tell he might have got off the table, and be waiting for her just on the other side of them.