I heard the sound of voices from the closed parlors, and saw reposing on the rack before me several hats and canes, indicative of visitors.  From the study, however, there fortunately came no murmur, and I found that it was dark.  The front-door stood invitingly open; I could see the opposite lamp-post without, and I had made up my mind to dart on and downward, and reach at a bound the pavement, when the door of the first parlor was suddenly thrown back, and left so, by a servant coming out with a tray of wines and fruits which he had been evidently handing, and I had just time to shrink into shadow, favored in my wish for concealment by the black dress and veil I wore, when a once familiar form appeared in the door-way of the front hall, which I recognized at a glance as that of Gregory.  Closing the door firmly after him, he prepared to divest himself of hat and cape in the hall, without a look in my direction.  After the completion of which process he entered the parlor by the nearest door, setting that also wide open as he did so, with some exclamation about the heat of the apartment, which seemed to meet with acquiescence from the powers within.

I caught a panoramic view of that interior before I fled swiftly, noiselessly, hopelessly, back to my cage again, having lost my only chance of escape by that fatal delay of five minutes on the platform.  I should have been out and away on the wings of the wind ere Gregory entered the inclosure before the house, had I not hesitated.  Yet, after all, perhaps, I miscalculated.  What if I had met him face to face—­been seized and dragged back again to captivity!  Perchance it was better as it was.  Time would develop and determine this; but, in the interval, how woeful was my disappointment!

I had time to get to bed again, and in some degree recover my composure; indeed, I had been in bed an hour when the clock in the dining-room beneath me, which, since the evident occupancy of that long-deserted hall, had been wound and put in running order, struck twelve, with its deep-mouthed, melodramatic tones, and at the very moment I heard sounds indicative of the resurrection of the mesmeric sleeper.

She was evidently startled in some way on finding herself awake again, or perhaps from having fallen so soundly asleep in hands like mine, for she called aloud first for “Dinah,” then, repeatedly, on “Miriam,” both without effect.  In a few moments after these appeals had died away she came in person, as I knew she would, to reconnoitre.

The bedstead had been pushed carefully and noiselessly back again on its grooved castors against the door, from the lock of which the wooden key had been removed, rewashed in oil, and hidden away in that hollow aperture in the bedstead, which formed a perfect box, by the skillful readjustment of one loosened compartment of the veneering of the massive post.

She shook me slightly, and I rose in my bed with a start and shudder, admirably simulated, I fancied, and which completely deceived her evidently.  “I am sorry to have startled you so,” she said, hurriedly, “but where is Dinah, Miss Monfort, and how did she get out?”