They parted at the door of their bedrooms on the first floor, where the late Duke’s valet, who was still in the house, had done everything possible to cope with the sudden emergency. Pajamas had been routed out, and toilet requisites provided. The windows of both rooms looked out over the ceaseless traffic of Piccadilly, so that no danger could be apprehended from that quarter; yet Forsyth sat for a long time before turning in to bed. In his ignorance of what was the source of the Duke’s danger, he had been loath to excite remark among the servants by fussing about the proper locking up of the mansion; but the stately tread of Prince going his rounds reassured him on that point, and eventually he slept. In the meanwhile, Sybil, in her room at the other end of the same corridor, was finding a still greater difficulty in composing herself to rest. The events of the evening, in such startling contrast with the normal calm of the dignified establishment that had been her home, had unsettled—not to say alarmed—her, and she felt no inclination to the lace-edged pillow that usually wooed her to willing slumbers. She was a sound, healthy girl, untroubled by nerves; but she felt a singular need for alertness, unreasonable perhaps, but imperative. The Duke’s anxiety to make sure that the clerically dressed individual had really left the house had impressed her; and now, too late for inquiry, she remembered that she had omitted to mention that _two_ men had called, one of them not having been shown into her presence. The latter, Prince had said, had been dismissed by his colleague; but his departure had only been witnessed by William, the second footman—a dreamy servant at the best of times, and unreliable by reason of a hopeless attachment to the senior housemaid. The thought thrilled Sybil that the other man, having hoodwinked the footman, might still be in the house, concealed in one of the many unused rooms. The idea of a lurking prowler, biding his time in the stillness of the sleeping household, kept her wakeful. Once or twice she looked out into the corridor; but the flicker of her candle only showed two rows of closed doors, without a sign of life, and each time she went back and tried to fix her attention on a book. So the night dragged into the small hours; and about three o’clock, after a longer interval than before, she determined to take one more peep and then get into bed. She had already grasped the door-handle, when she withdrew her hand as though it had been stung by an adder. A faint scrooping sound told her that someone was doing something in the corridor, and half a minute’s strained listening told her that, whatever that something was, it was persistent and continuous. It went on and on, like the drone of a bee in a bottle.