"He may be, or he may not be!" said Mrs. Wilson in an oracular tone.
"I've heard of folks walking in their sleep," she added, after a pause.
"You don't mean me?" asked Silas.
"No; if you did it I'd have had a chance to find out in forty years. Do you ever walk in your sleep?" she asked, turning suddenly to Bert.
The question was so unexpected that he could not help changing color, and this served to increase Mrs. Wilson's dawning suspicions.
"Not that I ever heard of," Bert answered, after a pause.
"I knew a boy once that did—it was a second cousin of my brother's first wife."
"I am sure I never get up in my sleep."
The door leading into the entry from which the back-stairs ascended was open, and through this, just at this moment, was heard a sound that startled all three who were sitting at the breakfast table.
It was a loud, unmistakeable sneeze, and it came from the chamber which Bert had occupied.