But prairie or city, man must sleep. David rose and went to the sideboard for a decanter. A certain graceful slowness characterized his movements. Town-bred men might have been deceived thereby, might reason that he was lethargic, of strapping physique, certainly, yet a man who could be hit three times before he countered once. It is this error of judgment which leads to accidents when town-dwellers encounter the denizens of the jungle. Harcourt's hand was outstretched for the decanter when he became aware that he was not alone in the flat. The knowledge was derived from neither sight nor sound. It was intuitive, a species of feeling through space, an imperative consciousness that he shared his suite of apartments with another distinct, if intangible, being. Many men might not have had it, but Harcourt had it clearly. Instantly he was rigid. This time he was weaving no fantasy round a whiff of violets. The sense of nearness to other presences is really inherent in man. Residence in settled communities dulls it, but in David Harcourt it was a living faculty. He stood motionless, waiting for some simple proof of his belief. The door, veiled by a portière, was not closed, but sufficiently closed to prevent any view of the corridor, which, otherwise, it commanded throughout. The flat was carpeted so thickly that movement was silenced. But David fancied that a woman's dress did brush somewhere against wall or floor. That was enough. He was about to spring forward and pull the door open to see, when he heard, or thought that he heard, the switch of the light outside click, as if it had been carefully raised. And on the instant, without hesitation, he pushed up the switch in the dining-room, and hid himself in darkness. There are wolves, too, in the London desert. Now, like a bush-cat, he crept to the door, opened it, and peeped out. Certainly the light which he had left burning had been extinguished by some hand; the corridor was in darkness. Nerves, as commonly understood, did not much enter into Harcourt's scheme of things. But his heart beat quicker. The speed of thought cannot be measured. Many questions, and one doubt, one question, flitted through his brain. He stood in deep gloom; near him, he was convinced, was something in the guise of woman. The face in chalks on the mantelpiece seemed to crowd the dark, the face of the woman who had been hovering on the verge of his consciousness ever since the agent had mentioned her to him. CHAPTER II A SIGNATURE WITH A FLOURISH He was collected enough, though the blood was rather cool in his veins, and there was an odd sensitiveness at the roots of his hair. "Who is there?" he asked in a matter-of-fact voice. There was no answer, and now he had a feeling that the presence was drawing nearer.