The girl could not sleep for the heat.  Anathematizing her room as a “black hole” of Calcutta, she lay tossing from side to side, and listening for the hourly strokes of a neighboring clock, and praying for the night to be over.  She heard that clock strike eleven, twelve, one.

At length Cora thought that she would go into the private parlor next her own room to get a breath of fresh air.  She felt sure that there she should be perfectly safe from intrusion, as she knew that the door leading from the parlor into the corridor was secured from within by a strong bolt, and the other two doors led, the one into her own little room, and the other, on the opposite side, into Mrs. Stillwater’s.  So that she would be as secluded as in her own chamber.

She slipped on a thin, dark blue silk dressing gown, thrust her feet in slippers, opened the door and passed into the parlor.

The room was very dark, still and cool.  The two side windows overlooking the alley were open, and a rising breeze from the harbor blew in.  Cora went and sat down in an easy chair in the angle of the corner between an open side window and her own room door.

The room was pitch dark.  The darkness, the coolness, and the stillness were all so soothing and refreshing to the girl’s heated and excited nerves that she sank back in her high, cushioned chair and dozed off into sleep—­into such a deep and dreamless sleep that she knew nothing until she was awakened, or rather only half awakened, by the sound of a key turning in a lock and a door creaking upon its hinges.  The sound seemed to come from the direction of Mrs. Stillwater’s room; but Cora was still half asleep, and almost unconscious of her whereabouts.  As in a dream, she heard some one tiptoe slowly across and jar a chair in the deep darkness.  She heard the bolt of the door leading into the corridor grate as it was slipped back.  This awakened her thoroughly.  She was about to call out: 

“Who is there?”

Then a voice that she recognized even in its low, whispering tones spoke and arrested the words on her lips.  It said: 

“Fabe!  Fabe! is that you?”

“Yes.  Is all quiet?”

“Yes; and has been so for hours.  Come in.  Pass around, feeling by the wall until you reach the sofa.  If you attempt to cross the room, you may strike a chair or table and make a noise, as I did.”

The unseen man cautiously crept around by the wall, feeling his way, but occasionally striking and jarring a picture frame or looking glass as he passed, and muttering good-humored little growls of deprecation, and finally making the sofa creak as he struck and sat heavily down upon it.

Cora was wide awake now, and quite cognizant of the identity of the invisible persons in the room as that of Mr. Fabian Rockharrt and Mrs. Rose Stillwater.

It did not once occur to the girl that she was doing any wrong in remaining there, in the parlor common to the whole party.  Surprise and wonder held her spellbound in her obscure seat.