It was Sarah then whom I had surprised in my room that evening! She had managed by some means to open my desk, seen the pendant, and, having made a grievance against me of the fact that I received letters from a gentleman, had taken the letter out and probably shown it to Mr. Rayner on some pretence of having “picked it up,” to prove to him by the direction in a handwriting which he knew that I was carrying on a clandestine correspondence with Mr. Laurence Reade. And I remembered that she had already taken the first note to Mr. Rayner. Well, if she had read both the notes--for they were lying together in my desk--she must have seen that they were of a very innocent kind; but how was Mr. Rayner, who had not read them, to know this? I was annoyed and disgusted beyond measure; I could have forgiven her anything, even her meanness in playing spy while I looked at the note which I wore round my neck, but stealing my precious letter. I shed some more tears at the loss of it, wondering whether she would ever take the trouble to restore it, polluted as it would be by having been read by her unkind eyes. Then I went to bed, very tired and very unhappy; and at last I fell asleep, with my hands clasping the note that Sarah could not get at, which I wore in the case round my neck. Perhaps the excitement and agitation of the evening had caused my sleep to be lighter than usual. At any rate, I was awakened by a very slight noise indeed, so slight that I thought it must have been the work of my nervous fancy; and my sleepy eyes were closing again, when I suddenly became conscious that there was a light in the room not that of the rising sun. Fully awake now, and cold all over with this new fright, I saw by the flickering on the ceiling that the light must come from a candle behind the screen; I saw that it was being carried forward into the room, and then I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. My fingers were still clinging to the little case; but they were wet and clammy with horror. Was it Sarah? What was she going to do now? To put back my letter? I did not dare to look. I lay there listening so intently that I could hear, or fancy I heard, each soft step taken by the intruder. Then they stopped; and from the effect of the flickering light through my closed eyelids I guessed that the candle was being raised to throw its light on my face. Still I had self-command enough to lie quite still and to imitate the long-drawn breathing of a sleeping person. But then my heart seemed to stand still, for I felt the light coming nearer, and I heard the faint sound of a moving figure growing plainer, until the light was flashed within a foot of my face. I could not have moved then. I was half paralyzed. Then I noticed a faint sickly smell that I did not know, and a hand was laid very softly upon the bed-clothes.