“As I cannot expect you to-morrow, I shall probably go to the opera, but I shall be at home before midnight.  Will you call me up then?  A word from you will put me at ease for the night, even if it comes over the telephone.”

“I will call you up.  We moderns have an advantage over the ancients in this respect:  the twentieth-century Pyramus can speak to Thisbe even if innumerable walls sever his body from hers.”

“A quaint conceit!  But let us hope that our love-story will end less tragically,” she said, tenderly caressing his hair.  “Oh, we shall be happy, you and I,” she added, after a while.  “The iron finger of fate that lay so heavily on our lives is now withdrawn.  Almost withdrawn.  Yes, almost.  Only almost.”

And then a sudden fear overcame her.

“No,” she cried, “do not go, do not go!  Stay with me; stay here.  I feel so frightened.  I don’t know what comes over me.  I am afraid—­afraid for you.”

“No, dear,” he rejoined, “you need not be afraid.  In your heart you don’t want me to desert a friend, and, besides, leave the best part of my artistic life in Reginald’s clutch.”

“Why should you expose yourself to God knows what danger for a friend who is ready to betray you?”

“You forget friendship is a gift.  If it exacts payment in any form, it is no longer either friendship or a gift.  And you yourself have assured me that I have nothing to fear from Reginald.  I have nothing to give to him.”

She rallied under his words and had regained her self-possession when the door closed behind him.  He walked a few blocks very briskly.  Then his pace slackened.  Her words had unsettled him a little, and when he reached home he did not at once resume his exploration of Reginald’s papers.  He had hardly lit a cigarette when, at an unusually early hour, he heard Reginald’s key in the lock.

Quickly he turned the light out and in the semi-darkness, lit up by an electric lantern below, barricaded the door as on the previous night.  Then he went to bed without finding sleep.

Supreme silence reigned over the house.  Even the elevator had ceased to run.  Ernest’s brain was all ear.  He heard Reginald walking up and down in the studio.  Not the smallest movement escaped his attention.  Thus hours passed.  When the clock struck twelve, he was still walking up and down, down and up, up and down.

One o’clock.

Still the measured beat of his footfall had not ceased.  There was something hypnotic in the regular tread.  Nature at last exacted its toll from the boy.  He fell asleep.

Hardly had he closed his eyes when again that horrible nightmare—­no longer a nightmare—­tormented him.  Again he felt the pointed delicate fingers carefully feeling their way along the innumerable tangled threads of nerve-matter that lead to the innermost recesses of self....

A subconscious something strove to arouse him, and he felt the fingers softly withdrawn.