But the coolness and deliberation of his scrutiny, had to a certain extent calmed Lawford’s mind and given him confidence. Hitherto he had met the little difficulties of life only to vanquish them with ease and applause. Now he was standing face to face with the unknown. He burst out laughing, into a long, low, helpless laughter. Then he arose and began to walk softly, swiftly, to and fro across the room—from wall to wall seven paces, and at the fourth, that awful, unseen, brightly-lit profile passed as swiftly over the tranquil surface of the looking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simply paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting medley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain, as a boatswain’s whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that same infinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now, ‘What are you going to do? What are you going to do?’ And in the midst of this confusion, out of the infinite, as it were, came another sharp tap at the door, and all within sank to utter stillness again. ‘It’s nearly half-past eight, Arthur; I can’t wait any longer.’ Lawford cast a last fleeting look into the glass, turned, and confronted the closed door. ‘Very well, Sheila, you shall _not_ wait any longer.’ He crossed over to the door, and suddenly a swift crafty idea flashed into his mind. He tapped on the panel. ‘Sheila,’ he said softly, ‘I want you first, before you come in, to get me something out of my old writing-desk in the smoking-room. Here is the key.’ He pushed a tiny key—from off the ring he carried—beneath the door. ‘In the third little drawer from the top, on the left side, is a letter; please don’t say anything now. It is the letter you wrote me, you will remember, after I had asked you to marry me. You scribbled in the corner under your signature the initials “Y.S.O.A.”—do you remember? They meant, You Silly Old Arthur!—do you remember? Will you please get that letter at once?’ ‘Arthur,’ answered the voice from without, empty of all expression, ‘what does all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense about a silly letter? What has happened? Is this a miserable form of persecution? Are you mad?—I refuse to get the letter.’ Lawford stooped, black and angular, against the door. ‘I am not mad. Oh, I am in the deadliest earnest, Sheila. You _must_ get the letter, if only for your own peace of mind.’ He heard his wife hesitate as she turned. He heard a sob. And once more he waited. ‘I have brought the letter,’ came the low toneless voice again. ‘Have you opened it?’ There was a rustle of paper. ‘Are the letters there underlined three times—“Y.S.O.A.”?’ ‘The letters are there.’ ‘And the date of the month is underneath, “April 3rd.” No one else in the whole world, living or dead, could know of this but ourselves, Sheila?’ ‘Will you please open the door?’ ‘No one?’ ‘I suppose not—no one.’