lay on the floor.  The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection of the candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about.  The door of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it before sitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made of the folded harp-bag.  From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom.  There, another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across the pipes on the wall.  He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for a moment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square.  Then, walking straight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise, he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers.  His face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness.  He had never been wilier nor more alert.

His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining sides of the room.  Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed.

He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he never for an instant doubted.  Nor, though he could not form the faintest guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear.  Startling or surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his scale of sensation had become depressed.  His hand moved this way and that under the bed in search of his slippers....

But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid.  His hand had found the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance he would have fallen.  The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession.  When presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather guard....

Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself again.

In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of his grandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could see in the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him on the chest of drawers.  He could see also in the picture-glass the little glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects about the mirror and candle.  But he could see more.  These twinklings and reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there was one gleam that had motion.  It was fainter than the rest, and it moved up and down through the air.  It was the reflection of the candle on Oleron’s black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements was accompanied by a silky and crackling rustle.