So, at sixteen minutes to nine, Dr. Blake, feeling a cross between a detective and a burglar, stole through the alley which backed the Markham residence, crossed the area, knocked softly at the kitchen door. It opened cautiously and then suddenly to show the kitchen, lighted with one dim lamp, and the ample form of Rosalie. With a finger on her lips, she closed the door behind him. His heart beat fast, less with a sense of impending adventure than with the thought, which struck him as he mounted the servants' staircase, that he was divided but by thin walls from the object of all these strivings and diplomacies--that for the second time in his life he was under her home roof with Annette. It was a firm, old house. Their footsteps made not the slightest creak on the thick-carpeted stairs. At the door of her room, Rosalie stopped and put her mouth to his ear. "Step careful inside," she said, "my floor is bare." He stood now in the neat, low-ceiled housekeeper's parlor. Rosalie turned up the gas, and indicated by a gesture that he was to stand still. Elaborately, she closed the registers, plugged the keyhole with her key, and set two chairs beside him. "Now sit down," she whispered. "They can't hear us talkin', though we'd better whisper for safety, but two sets of footsteps might sound suspicious. The halls are carpeted like a padded cell, which ought to have put me wise in the beginning." "Are you sure Annette's abed?" he asked anxiously. Rosalie threw him a swift glance, as of suspicion. "Sure," she said--"saw her go. Now before I let you out, I want to git one promise from you. Whatever happens, you leave this house quiet,--as quiet as you can. You've got _me_ to guard in this as well as yourself--you can't leave me alone with trouble." "I'll promise that," he said. "Won't you tell me what I'm going to see?" Rosalie, under pretense of consulting her watch, looked away. "You'll know in ten minutes," she said. "Now don't bother me with any questions. I've got directions for you. You're coming with me to the floor below. I'll let you into a hall closet. It was built into a--into a room, and the back of it is only wood. There's an old gas connection, which they papered over, through that wood. Yesterday I punched through the paper and hung a picture over the hole. This afternoon, I took that picture down. To-morrow morning, the picture goes back. But now, there's a peephole into the room." Dr. Blake bristled. "Peep through a hole!" he said. "Now ain't that just like a fashionable bringin-up," said Rosalie, almost raising her voice. "Things a gentleman can do an' things he can't do! You're tryin' to bust a crook, an' you remember what your French nurse told you about the etiquette of keyholes!" "You're my master at argument, Mme. Le Grange," responded Blake. "Go ahead." "And you promise to leave quiet?" "I promise."