found that it was locked. I remembered that it had been my alternate plan for Mary to lock me in, and I supposed that she had forgotten that our final decision was in favor of the other scheme, or she had preferred to watch over Robbie alone. I was a little hurt, but I acquiesced in my imprisonment and went back to bed. I put out the light, and was very soon asleep again.     

       I was waked by a dreadful sound of screaming. I sat up in bed, stiff with fear, my heart leaping. Then I ran towards the door, remembered that it was locked, and stood in the middle of the room, pressing my hands       together.     

       The screaming stopped. Robbie had had his nightmare, and it was over. Thank God! this time my alibi was established without doubt. I was enormously relieved, for I had begun myself to fear that I had been walking in my sleep, and, perhaps, influenced by the description of Robbie's favorite nightmare, had unconsciously acted out the horror beside his bed. After a while, the house being fairly quiet, though I thought I would hear Mary moving about, I went back to my bed. When she could leave her charge I knew that she would come to me with her story. I tried to be calm and patient, but of course I was anything but that.     

       It was nearly morning, a faint, greenish light spread in the sky, opening fanlike fingers through the slats of my shutter. After a while, it seemed interminable, a step came down the hall. It was not Mary's padded, nurselike tread, it was the quick, resolute footstep of a man. It stopped outside my door. There was no ceremony of knocking, no key turned. The handle was sharply moved, and, to my utter amazement, the door opened.     

       There stood Paul Dabney, fully dressed, his face pale and grim.     

       “Come out,” he said. “Come with me and see what has been done.” I noticed that he kept one hand in his pocket, and that the pocket bulged.     

       I got up, still in my wrapper, my hair hanging in two long, dishevelled braids, and came, in a dazed way, towards him. He took me by the wrist, using his left hand, the other still in his pocket. His fingers were as cold and hard as steel. I shrunk a little from them, and he gave my wrist a queer, cruel little shake.     

       “What does it feel like, eh?” he snarled.     

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