My skin turned crisp with fright. I am afraid I lost my head as completely as ever I lost it in my life. Friendship or no friendship, I gave him the benefit of not one single doubt. If he was coming in there was one thing to do and one only--to make a dash and get away out of it. Again I heard the laugh. It came from the landing immediately below. A step or two higher, and---- I sprang to the electric light and switched it off. The little curtained hat-and-coat recess stood just within the door. I made a tiptoe leap for it. As I did so I remembered with thankfulness one of the recess's peculiarities. It abutted so close up to the door-frame on the side where the lock and handle were that Rose had had the switch moved to the other side. The opening door would therefore be between him and the switch. That would be my moment. He would see my things scattered about his room the moment he turned on the light, but that could be explained later. To get away was the urgent thing. Violently agitated, the curtains grasped in my hand, I stood prepared to make my spring. The feet had stopped outside the door. I heard the striking of a match. I waited for the touch of the key on the lock. Then, "What, up again?" I heard the man's voice say.... The feet passed on to the floor above. I never knew who lived there. Rose's bell was the third of four, counting from the bottom. IV I have not told you the foregoing because I am proud of it. At the best I had behaved childishly, at the worst--but we will come to that presently. Had it really been he I should probably not have had the remotest chance of ever getting past him. He would have vaulted a handrail in the dark, taken a flight in two bounds, and would have had his hand--that hand that tore books in two--on my neck. Had he recognised me he would have wanted to know what the devil I was doing in his rooms. Had he failed to recognise me I should as likely as not have gone through the window. One takes risks when one intrudes on the loves of the giants. At the same time, I will do myself the justice to say that physical risks were not my first consideration. Vast as his strength was, it was the part of him I least feared. What I did fear, what I was now beginning to think I had not nearly sufficiently allowed for, was the enormous spiritual and mental range of the man.