He was still casting up this ledger of his chances when a lonely booming sound broke upon the stillness of the night and penetrated through the open window like some melancholy siren of the sea. It was repeated and repeated, growing louder with each repetition yet hardly more articulate, and without any change of intonation. And every now and then it was interrupted for a few seconds by a dull crash. Rames tried to thrust it from his notice. "Will she? Will she not?" he asked himself. But the booming sound would not be denied. It was as the wail of some utterly friendless man who cared not whether his fellows slept or waked. It was thoroughly pitiless. Nearer it came to the hotel, and now wavering, heavy feet could be heard to beat an irregular accompaniment. The occasional thud was explained. A very drunken man was staggering up the hill and from time to time he fell upon the pavement, unconscious that he fell, barely aware only that his long-drawn cry had ceased. Rames thought of him as a malignant creature determined to inflict torture--until the sound at last sifted itself into definite words. "Vote for Harry Rames!" the nightfarer cried aloud to a city which had already done so; and at times he dropped the Harry and inserted an epithet of color common no doubt in his vocabulary. He passed beneath the windows and with many a tumble faded into distance, invoking the unresponsive gas lamps. Rames turned over on his side with relief. "My dear," he whispered, "take his advice and vote for Harry Rames! I shall owe you much, but I'll make it up to you. I'll not ask you till I am sure I can. I must risk Helmsdale carrying you off." He fell asleep and even the tune the clock chimes in Ludsey church played at four o'clock in the morning did not make him stir. But at the White House just at that hour Cynthia waked. It was not the clock which waked her. It seemed to her that she had heard a step in the corridor. She sat up in her bed and in a few seconds was sure of it. Some one was moving very stealthily about the house. For a moment her old horror gripped her. Here was her father come at last with authority to claim her. She sat staring wide-eyed into the darkness, flung back to the days when she was a child. Then her reason reasserted itself. Her father was dead. The blood flowed again to her heart. But the stealthy sound continued. She heard a door gently latched. She sprang out of bed, opened her own door, and switched on the light. The corridor was empty to the edge of the shadows. She peered into them. She saw nothing, and no sound reached her now. "Who is it?" she asked in a loud voice, and no answer came to her. She waited in her doorway with a hand to her breast. The plank of a stair cracked loudly, close to her; but no footsteps made it crack. She went back into her room.