From here he saw Conscience move into the zone of light framed by the window. Her hair had been loosened from its coils and fell in a heavy cascade of darkness over shoulders that were bare.
She seemed to wear a dainty negligée of ribboned silk, and as he watched she began slowly braiding her hair into two dusky ropes. After a little time she disappeared again from view.
The lunatic, now thoroughly frenzied, and imbued with the phantasy of suspicion, went back again to the higher ground and, after a time, saw her open the door of her room and disappear into the hall. That hall was the road that led to Stuart Farquaharson's room—and perdition!
Once more he, too, went to the rear of the house. There lay the best chance of viewing the next and most ominous scene of this drama of infamy and unfaithfulness.
But the hall at that angle was dark and told him nothing. Something else however told him everything—at least he so believed. The window of Stuart Farquaharson's room was no longer black but a frame of light.
Eben stood for a space with breath that came in hurried and panting excitement while the madness mounted in his veins and burned fiercely in his eyes.
Then, against the illuminated background he saw Stuart, the man whom God meant him to kill.
He was wrapped in a bathrobe and was calmly raising a match to his pipe-bowl.
The averted face was looking, Eben bitterly told himself, at the door which he could not see; was watching it open to admit Conscience Tollman.