No reply; only the heavy breathing.
“I said where did you get your cigars?” said Glyddyr, still more loudly.
“He must be safe,” he thought to himself; and to make sure he walked carelessly to the side of the chair, and gazed full in Gartram’s face.
“He would have winced if there had been any pretence,” he thought. And then, “Pooh! what a fool I am.”
He glanced at the table in whose drawer the keys reposed, looked at the great section of the bookcase which swung round as upon a pivot, and then he walked quickly to the window and looked out right and left, listening the while to the beating of the waves upon the rocky coast far below.
“While I am hesitating,” he thought, “I might do it. The doctor can’t be back yet, and no one is likely to come.”
There was a step outside.
He took a couple of strides, and then sharply threw himself into an easy-chair near the bookcase, and lay back in almost profound darkness, for the rays of the moon cut right across from the window, bathing the carpet with a soft light, but leaving beyond the well-defined line a deep shadow.
He had hardly taken his place when there was a faint tap at the panel of the door, the handle turned, and, silent and ghastly-looking in the gloom, Sarah Woodham came into the room, closed the door behind her, and walked across to Gartram’s chair.