Considering the unaccustomed position in which Raikes had placed himself in arranging to retire the night before, he awoke with considerable astonishment to the realization that he had passed a night of undisturbed slumber. Aside from a slight disposition to stretch his lean limbs unduly, and a feeling of insecurity attending his first efforts to stand, he was not aware of any inconvenience from his singular siesta. At last, after having re-established his creaking equilibrium and resumed his accustomed furtive regard of things, he was suddenly reminded by the shifted position of the furniture of the purpose of this makeshift barricade. At once the shuddering dread which had attended his recent visits to the secret recess returned with numbing chills and sinking spirit. He advanced his bony hand, gnarled and mean with useless abstemiousness and miserable abnegations, and revolved the button in the concave. In response, the false register swung back; in another tense moment the inner space was revealed, and his treasury laid bare. For an instant, in the manner of an apprehensive child who postpones as long as possible some unwelcome confirmation, Raikes closed his eyes, and when he opened them again they rested, with unerring precision, upon a bag somewhat detached from the others, which protruded at its sides with those frightful points and angles with which he had become so unhappily familiar of late. With a smothered cry he sprang forward, gripped the bag in a trembling, faltering clutch, and dropped it with a groan to the floor, where it fell with a heart-breaking, distracting lightness, which, nevertheless, smote like a mighty weight upon his bursting heart. "My God!" he cried, "this is incredible!" and the miserable creature stood for a moment with an appalling vacancy shadowing in his countenance, which was illumed for one fitful moment with a ray of hope as he inserted his hand in his waistcoat pocket to assure himself that the diamond which he had placed in that receptacle the night before at least was safe. The diamond--ah, yes! There was still some consolation in that. Its value still maintained a close proportion to his loss. If there was no gain there was, at least, a sort of evil restitution. But his exploring fingers found only an empty pocket. In a palsy of fear, and with the demeanor of one who feels the first twinge of a mortal affliction and awaits in fearful silence the grewsome confirmation of another, he stood without sound or motion, his set, staring eyes directed with unseeing intensity upon the vacant air. The next instant, with feverish animation and impotent apprehension, five writhing fingers leaped from their futile search, like scotched reptiles, into the opposite pocket and withdrew the two useless keys with which he fastened his abortive latch on the door.