She had not had any food since the afternoon cup of tea and she began to feel the need of it. If she became faint—! She lifted her face desperately as she said it, and saw the immense blue darkness, powdered with millions of stars and curving over her—as it curved over the hideous house and all the rest of the world. How high—how immense—how fathomlessly still it was—how it seemed as if there could be nothing else—that nothing else could be real! Her hands were clenched together hard and fiercely, as she scrambled to her knees and uttered a of prayer—not a child’s—rather the cry of a young Fury making a demand. “Perhaps a girl is Nothing,” she cried, “—a girl locked up in a room! But, perhaps, she is Something—she may be real too! Save me—save me! But if you won’t save me, let me be killed!” She knelt silent after it for a few minutes and then she sank down and lay on the floor with her face on her arm. How it was possible that even young and worn-out as she was, such peace as sleep could overcome her at such a time, one cannot say. But in the midst of her torment she was asleep. But it was not for long. She wakened with a start and sprang to her feet shivering. The carriages were still coming and going with guests for the big house opposite. It could not be late, though she seemed to have been in the place for years—long enough to feel that it was the hideous centre of the whole earth and all sane and honest memories were a dream. She thought she would begin to walk up and down the room. But a sound she heard at this very instant made her stand stock still. She had known there would be a sound at last—she had waited for it all the time—she had known, of course, that it would come, but she had not even tried to guess whether she would hear it early or late. It would be the sound of the turning of the handle of the locked door. It had come. There it was! The click of the lock first and then the creak of the turned handle! She went to the window again and stood with her back against it, so that her body was outlined against the faint light. Would the person come in the dark, or would he carry a light? Something began to whirl in her brain. What was the low, pumping thump she seemed to hear and feel at the same time? It was the awful thumping of her heart. The door opened—not stealthily, but quite in the ordinary way. The person who came in did not move stealthily either. He came in as though he were making an evening call. How tall and straight his body was, with a devilish elegance of line against the background of light in the hall. She thought she saw a white flower on his lapel as his overcoat fell back. The leering footman had opened the door for him. “Turn on the lights.” A voice she knew gave the order, the leering footman obeyed, touching a spot high on the wall.