He went still nearer. Now for the first time he noticed close by the couch an empty decanter, the one into which James had poured brandy, and by it a glass. He noticed something else too; the left hand of the figure on the couch lay on the breast, and from the third finger all the rings were gone. "All the rings gone!" he thought, in dismay. "The place broken into and all the rings gone! This room broken into and the rings taken off the finger! She never removed the wedding-ring, and scarcely ever the guard. She must have been asleep when he came in; and he, no doubt, seeing the decanter and the glass, and observing she took no notice of sounds, went about his work. A bold man, a very bold man." When had that man been there? He had no means of determining the time at which the burglar had been in the room. It was clear, however, he had been there while she was alive. Had he been there after the sailing of the steamboat _Rodwell_ from Daneford that evening? If so, that burglar could hang him, Grey. Out with the candle. He extinguished it. A profound quiet brooded abroad. Not a leaf stirred. The trees were as motionless and the air as mute as if the air was solid crystal. No sound from the city or the road intruded upon the voiceless darkness of that tower-room. Grey stood a while looking at the square of dim blue bloom indicating where the window was. Then he stooped and touched what lay on the couch, and pulled himself upright with a jerk. He stooped down his head once more, and listened intently. Last time he had so stooped he had heard a low faint breathing. Now nothing reached his ears, but beyond the reach of human ears he heard the deep roll of the Eternal Ocean on the shores of Everlasting Night. The ocean of everlasting silence, where her voice had been, was more awful than the clangour of war, or the shouts of a burning town. "It will not do to think now. I must make thought drunk with action. She is not heavy. I have often carri----No, no; that sort of thing would be the worst of all. Now for it!" He stooped once again, rose more slowly than at any former time, and walked down the room with heavy footfall, carrying a burden. The room had two doors--one between it and the passage leading to the bedroom; the other between it and the landing of the tower-stairs. The staircase down from the landing was boarded off, so that egress from the tower-room by that staircase was impossible. The upward way was unimpeded. The staircase had not been used once for years. There was nothing in either of the upper rooms, and no one had ever been in either of them since Grey himself, when he had gone over the house before buying it. The staircase was as dark and silent as a grave. A thin carpet of dust deadened the footfalls, and, clinging to the boot-leather, muffled the feet. Now and then his foot crushed a small piece of plaster which had fallen from the ceiling. This made a sound like a wild beast crunching bones.