Next she knelt down before a large carved oak chest, and Capel saw how carefully she searched that, and examined top and bottom to see whether either was false. This done, she walked to the bed, and stood pondering there. Crossing to the built-up portal, she drew the curtain aside, revealing the half-dry cement. She shook her head, and walked to the window, where she carefully rearranged the heavy folds there, to keep the rays of light from passing out and betraying her task to any one who might be at the upper windows of some house. The act displayed the working of a brain that, if slumbering, still held a peculiar activity of an abnormal kind. Once or twice he caught sight of Katrine's eyes, that were not as he had seen them on that other night, wide open, and staring straight before her, but bright, eager, and full of animation. "She must be awake," he thought; and the idea was strengthened as he saw her throw herself down upon a chair, and with a peculiar action of her hands indicative of disappointment, rest her elbows on her knee, her chin upon her clenched fists, and there she bent down, her face intent, her brows knit, and looking ten years older, as the candle cast a curious shadow on her countenance. Then the lover intervened on her behalf. No; she could not be. To suppose that she was awake was to credit her with being deceitful--with cheating him into the belief that night that she was asleep. He was about to spring out, throw himself at her feet, and waken her with his caresses, but a chilling feeling of repulsion stayed him. It might work mischief in the terrible fright it would give her at being awakened in that gloomy room. And besides, what a place to select for his passionate avowals. It was secret and silent, the very home for such a love as his; but there was the terrible past. Where she was seated, but a short time back, there lay the ghastly body of the murdered man. Behind her was the bed where so recently a strange occupant was stretched, and beneath it lay that other lately discovered horror. Beyond that built-up wall was the Colonel's tomb. Love was impossible in such a place as that; and did he want confirmation of the fact that Katrine was a somnambulist, he felt that he had it here before him. For no girl of her years would dare to come down in the dead of the night, and enter that room, haunted as it was with such terrible memories. He stood watching her as she crouched there, looking straight before her, and as she suddenly sprang up, and went to a picture painted upon a panel in the wall, he found himself growing excited by the fancy that, perhaps, in the clairvoyant state of sleep, she might be able to discover the mystery that had baffled them all.