"I see. I'm to be a prisoner. It doesn't sound quite nice; but I suppose I'll have to put up with it. If you were to catch me walking in my sleep how dreadful it would be."
"I sha'n't do it. I don't believe you ever have walked in your sleep, and I don't believe you ever will."
Later it was arranged that the young lady should undress, take a book with her to bed, and try to read herself to sleep. Then it became a question of the book.
"I know the very book that would be bound to send me to sleep in a couple of ticks, even in the middle of the day. I've tested its soporific powers already. Three times I've tried to get through the first chapter, and each time I've been asleep before I reached the end. It is a book! I bought it a week or two ago. I don't know why. I wasn't in want of a sleeping powder then. Where did I put it? Oh, I remember; I lent it to Mrs Plummer. She seemed to want something to doze over, so I suggested that would be just the thing. Evans, do you think Mrs Plummer is asleep yet?"
"I don't know, miss. I believe she's pretty late. I'll go and see."
"No, I'll go and see. Then I can explain to her what it is I want, and just what I want it for. You stay here; I sha'n't be a minute."
Miss Arnott went up to Mrs Plummer's bedroom. It was called the tower-room. On one side of the house--which was an architectural freak--was an eight-sided tower. Although built into the main building it rose high above it. Near the top was a clock with three faces. On the roof was a flagstaff which served to inform the neighbourhood if the family was or was not at home.
Miss Arnott was wont to declare that the tower-rooms were the pleasantest in the house. In proof of it the one which she had selected to be her own special apartment lay immediately under that in which Mrs Plummer slept. It had two separate approaches. The corridor in which was Miss Arnott's sleeping-chamber had, at one end--the one farthest from her--a short flight of stairs which ascended to a landing on to which opened one of Mrs Plummer's bedroom doors. On the opposite side of the room was another door which gave access to what was, to all intents and purposes, a service staircase. Miss Arnott, passing along the corridor and up the eight or nine steps, rapped at the panel once, twice, and then again. As still no one answered she tried the handle, thinking that if it was locked the probabilities were that Mrs Plummer was in bed and fast asleep. But, instead of being locked, it opened readily at her touch. The fact that the electric lights were all on seemed to suggest that, at anyrate, the lady was not asleep in bed.
"Mrs Plummer!" she exclaimed, standing in the partly opened doorway.
No reply. Opening the door wider she entered the room. It was empty. But there was that about the appearance of the chamber which conveyed the impression that quite recently, within the last two or three minutes, it had had an occupant. Clothes were thrown down anywhere, as if their wearer had doffed them in a hurry. Miss Arnott, who had had a notion that Mrs Plummer was the soul of neatness, was surprised and even tickled by the evidence of untidiness which met her on every hand. Not only were articles of wearing apparel scattered everywhere, but the whole apartment was in a state of odd disarray; at one part the carpet was turned quite back. As she looked about her, Miss Arnott smiled.