Hester set her foot on the first stair—­stopped—­turned round—­and looked slowly along the two walls of the passage, from end to end—­shuddered—­shook her head—­and went slowly on down the stairs.

“What were you looking for?” he whispered after her.

She neither answered, nor looked back—­she went her way into the kitchen.

He waited a minute, and then followed her.

On his way out to the garden, he went into the dining-room.  The moon had risen; and the window-shutters were not closed.  It was easy to find the brandy and the jug of water on the table.  He mixed the two, and emptied the tumbler at a draught.  “My head’s queer,” he whispered to himself.  He passed his handkerchief over his face.  “How infernally hot it is to-night!” He made for the door.  It was open, and plainly visible—­and yet, he failed to find his way to it.  Twice, he found himself trying to walk through the wall, on either side.  The third time, he got out, and reached the garden.  A strange sensation possessed him, as he walked round and round.  He had not drunk enough, or nearly enough, to intoxicate him.  His mind, in a dull way, felt the same as usual; but his body was like the body of a drunken man.

The night advanced; the clock of Putney Church struck ten.

Anne appeared again from the drawing room, with her bedroom candle in her hand.

“Put out the lights,” she said to Hester, at the kitchen door; “I am going up stairs.”

She entered her room.  The insupportable sense of weariness, after the sleepless night that she had passed, weighed more heavily on her than ever.  She locked her door, but forbore, on this occasion, to fasten the bolts.  The dread of danger was no longer present to her mind; and there was this positive objection to losing the bolts, that the unfastening of them would increase the difficulty of leaving the room noiselessly later in the night.  She loosened her dress, and lifted her hair from her temples—­and paced to and fro in the room wearily, thinking.  Geoffrey’s habits were irregular; Hester seldom went to bed early.

Two hours at least—­more probably three—­must pass, before it would be safe to communicate with Sir Patrick by means of the signal in the window.  Her strength was fast failing her.  If she persisted, for the next three hours, in denying herself the repose which she sorely needed, the chances were that her nerves might fail her, through sheer exhaustion, when the time came for facing the risk and making the effort to escape.  Sleep was falling on her even now—­and sleep she must have.  She had no fear of failing to wake at the needful time.  Falling asleep, with a special necessity for rising at a given hour present to her mind, Anne (like most other sensitively organized people) could trust herself to wake at that given hour, instinctively.  She put her lighted candle in a safe position, and laid down on the bed.  In less than five minutes, she was in a deep sleep.