Making up my mind to the uncomfortable, I sat down on the floor by the lattice, and began a vigil that might last, I knew, until morning. It did last about an hour, at the end of which time I heard whispering below, then footsteps; then, as some persons turned a corner, a voice speaking aloud and carelessly. I could not catch the words or meaning, but the voice was a gentleman’s, and its bold accents and masterful tone left me in no doubt that the speaker was M. de Cocheforet himself. Hoping to learn more, I pressed my face nearer to the opening, and had just made out through the gloom two figures--one that of a tall, slight man, wearing a cloak, the other, I fancied, a woman’s, in a sheeny white dress--when a thundering rap on the door of my garret made me spring back a yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on my couch. The summons was repeated. ‘Well?’ I cried, rising on my elbow, and cursing the untimely interruption. I was burning with anxiety to see more. ‘What is it? What is the matter?’ The trap-door was lifted a foot or more. The landlord thrust up his head. ‘You called, did you not?’ he said. He held up a rushlight, which illumined half the room and lit up his grinning face. ‘Called--at this hour of the night, you fool?’ I answered angrily. ‘No! I did not call. Go to bed, man!’ But he remained on the ladder, gaping stupidly. ‘I heard you,’ he said. ‘Go to bed! You are drunk,’ I answered, sitting up. ‘I tell you I did not call.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ he answered slowly. ‘And you do not want anything?’ ‘Nothing--except to be left alone,’ I replied sourly. ‘Umph!’ he said. ‘Good-night!’ ‘Good-night! Good-night!’ I answered with what patience I might. The tramp of the horse’s hoofs as it was led out of the stable was in my ears at the moment. ‘Good-night!’ I continued feverishly, hoping that he would still retire in time, and I have a chance to look out. ‘I want to sleep.’ ‘Good,’ he said, with a broad grin. ‘But it is early yet, and you have plenty of time.’ And then, at last, he slowly let down the trap-door, and I heard him chuckle as he went down the ladder. Before he reached the bottom I was at the window. The woman, whom I had seen, still stood below in the same place, and beside her was a man in a peasant’s dress, holding a lanthorn. But the man, the man I wanted to see, was no longer there. He was gone, and it was evident that the others no longer feared me; for while I gazed the landlord came out to them with another lanthorn swinging in his hand, and said something to the lady, and she looked up at my window and laughed.