opium? a pause in the action of the brain? Who
could tell? Everything depended, now, on
what he did next.

He laid himself down again on the bed!

A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it
possible that the sedative action of the opium
was making itself felt already? It was not in
my experience that it should do this. But what
is experience, where opium is concerned?
There are probably no two men in existence on
whom the drug acts in exactly the same manner.
Was some constitutional peculiarity in him,
feeling the influence in some new way? Were
we to fail, on the very brink of success?

No! He got up again abruptly. "How the
devil am I to sleep," he said, "with this on my
mind?"

He looked at the light, burning on the table
at the head of his bed. After a moment, he
took the candle in his hand.

I blew out the second candle, burning behind
the closed curtains. I drew back, with Mr.
Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner
by the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as
if their lives had depended on it.

We waited—seeing and hearing nothing.
We waited, hidden from him by the curtains.

The light which he was holding on the other
side of us, moved suddenly. The next moment,
he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the
candle in his hand.

He opened the bedroom door, and went out.

We followed him, along the corridor. We
followed him down the stairs. We followed
him along the second corridor. He never
looked back; he never hesitated.

He opened the sitting-room door, and went
in, leaving it open behind him.

The door was hung (like all the other doors
in the house) on large old-fashioned hinges.
When it was opened, a crevice was opened
between the door and the post. I signed to
my two companions to look through this, so as
to keep them from showing themselves. I
placed myself—outside the door also—on the
opposite side. A recess in the wall was at my
left hand, in which I could instantly hide
myself, if he showed any signs of looking back into
the corridor.

He advanced to the middle of the room,
with the candle still in his hand: he looked
about him—but he never looked back.

I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom,
standing ajar. She had put out her light. She
controlled herself nobly. The dim white
outline of her summer dress was all that I could
see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand,
would have suspected that there was a
living creature in the room. She kept back, in
the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped
her.

It was now ten minutes past one. I heard,
through the dead silence, the soft drip of the
rain, and the tremulous passage of the night air
through the trees.

After waiting irresolute, for a minute or
more, in the middle of the room, he moved to
the corner near the window, where the Indian
cabinet stood.

He put his candle on the top of the cabinet.
He opened, and shut, one drawer after another,
until he came to the drawer in which the mock
Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer
for a moment: Then, he took the mock
Diamond out with his right hand. With the other
hand, he took the candle from the top of the
cabinet.

He walked back a few steps towards the
middle of the room, and stood still again.

Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he
had done on the birthday night. Would his
next proceeding be the same as the proceeding
of last year? Would he leave the room?
Would he go back now, as I believed he had
gone back then, to his bedchamber? Would he
show us what he had done with the Diamond,
when he had returned to his own room?

His first action, when he moved once more,
proved to be an action which he had not
performed, when he was under the influence of the
opium for the first time. He put the candle
down on a table, and wandered on a little
towards the farther end of the room. There was
a sofa here. He leaned heavily on the back of
it, with his left hand—then roused himself, and
returned to the middle of the room. I could
now see his eyes. They were getting dull and
heavy; the glitter in them was fast dying out.

The suspense of the moment proved too
much for Miss Verinder's self-control. She
advanced a few steps—then stopped again.
Mr. Bruff and Betteredge looked across the
open doorway at me for the first time. The
prevision of a coming disappointment was
impressing itself on their minds as well as on
mine.

Still, so long as he stood where he was, there
was hope. We waited, in unutterable
expectation, to see what would happen next.

The next event was decisive. He let the
mock Diamond drop out of his hand.

It fell on the floor, before the doorway—
plainly visible to him, and to every one. He
made no effort to pick it up: he looked down
at it vacantly, and, as he looked, his head sank
on his breast. He staggered—roused himself
for an instant—walked back unsteadily to the
sofa—and sat down on it. He made a last
effort; he tried to rise, and sank back. His
head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then
twenty-five minutes past one o'clock. Before I
had put my watch back in my pocket, he was
asleep.

It was all over now. The sedative influence
had got him; the experiment was at an end.

I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and
Betteredge that they might follow me. There
was no fear of disturbing him. We were free
to move and speak.

"The first thing to settle," I said, "is the
question of what we are to do with him. He
will probably sleep for the next six or seven
hours, at least. It is some distance to carry