By this time the two watchers had crept from their concealment near enough to note what he was doing in the bedroom. He was stooping over the comb which Mr. Gryce had left lying on the floor. This small object in such a place seemed to surprise him. He took it up, shook his head, and put it back on the dresser. Then he turned down his master's bed.
"Poor fool!" murmured Miss Butterworth as she and her companion crept back to their old place behind the parlor curtains, "he has forgotten everything but his old routine duties. We shall get nothing from this man."
But she stopped suddenly; they both stopped. Bartow was in the middle of the study, with his eyes fixed on his master's empty chair in an inquiring way that spoke volumes. Then he turned, and gazed earnestly at the rug where he had last seen that master lying outstretched and breathless; and awakening to a realization of what had happened, fell into his most violent self and proceeded to go through the series of actions which they were now bound to consider a reproduction of what he had previously seen take place there. Then he went softly out, and crept away upstairs.
Mr. Gryce and Miss Butterworth stepped at once into the light, and surveyed each other with a look of marked discouragement. Then the latter, with a sudden gleam of enthusiasm, cried quickly:
"Turn on another color, and let us see what will happen. I have an idea it will fetch the old man down again."
Mr. Gryce's brows went up.
"Do you think he can see through the floor?"
But he touched a button, and a rich blue took the place of the violet.
Nothing happened.
Miss Butterworth looked disturbed.