The touch roused her.  With slow step and vacant face—­moving as if she was walking in her sleep—­she led the way to the papered wall; knelt down at the skirting-board; and, taking out two small sharp nails, lifted up a long strip of the paper which had been detached from the plaster beneath.  Mounting on a chair, she turned back the strip and pinned it up, out of the way, using the two nails, which she had kept ready in her hand.

By the last dim rays of twilight, Geoffrey looked at the wall.

A hollow space met his view.  At a distance of some three feet from the floor, the laths had been sawn away, and the plaster had been ripped out, piecemeal, so as to leave a cavity, sufficient in height and width to allow free power of working in any direction, to a man’s arms.  The cavity completely pierced the substance of the wall.  Nothing but the paper on the other side prevented eye or hand from penetrating into the next room.

Hester Dethridge got down from the chair, and made signs for a light.

Geoffrey took a match from the box.  The same strange uncertainty which had already possessed his feet, appeared now to possess his hands.  He struck the match too heavily against the sandpaper, and broke it.  He tried another, and struck it too lightly to kindle the flame.  Hester took the box out of his hands.  Having lit the candle, she hel d it low, and pointed to the skirting-board.

Two little hooks were fixed into the floor, near the part of the wall from which the paper had been removed.  Two lengths of fine and strong string were twisted once or twice round the hooks.  The loose ends of the string extending to some length beyond the twisted parts, were neatly coiled away against the skirting-board.  The other ends, drawn tight, disappeared in two small holes drilled through the wall, at a height of a foot from the floor.

After first untwisting the strings from the hooks, Hester rose, and held the candle so as to light the cavity in the wall.  Two more pieces of the fine string were seen here, resting loose upon the uneven surface which marked the lower boundary of the hollowed space.  Lifting these higher strings, Hester lifted the loosened paper in the next room—­the lower strings, which had previously held the strip firm and flat against the sound portion of the wall, working in their holes, and allowing the paper to move up freely.  As it rose higher and higher, Geoffrey saw thin strips of cotton wool lightly attached, at intervals, to the back of the paper, so as effectually to prevent it from making a grating sound against the wall.  Up and up it came slowly, till it could be pulled through the hollow space, and pinned up out of the way, as the strip previously lifted had been pinned before it.  Hester drew back, and made way for Geoffrey to look through.  There was Anne’s room, visible through the wall!  He softly parted the light curtains that hang over the bed.  There was the pillow, on which her head would rest at night, within reach of his hands!