"Can you go through the ceremony of marriage?"
"I must—if nothing happens to-night."
"And then?"
I spoke involuntarily. I was thinking not of him, but of myself. But he evidently found in my words an echo of his own thought.
"Yes, it is the then," he murmured. "Well may a man quail before that then."
He did go down stairs, however, and later on, went through the rehearsal very much as I had expected him to do, quietly and without any outward show of emotion.
As soon as possible after this the company separated, Sinclair making me an imperceptible gesture as he went up stairs. I knew what it meant, and was in his room as soon as the fellows who accompanied him had left him alone.
"The danger is from now on," he cried, as soon as I had closed the door behind me. "I shall not undress to-night."
"Nor I."
"Happily we both have rooms by ourselves in this great house. I shall put out my light and then open my door as far as need be. Not a move in the house will escape me."