We found Miss Verinder pale and agitated, restlessly pacing her sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood Betteredge, on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff sat down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on the spot.
Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her one all-absorbing interest—the interest in Mr. Blake.
"How is he now?" she asked. "Is he nervous? is he out of temper? Do you think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do no harm?"
"Quite sure. Come and see me measure it out."
"One moment. It is past eleven now. How long will it be before anything happens?"
"It is not easy to say. An hour, perhaps."
"I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year?"
"Certainly."
"I shall wait in my bedroom—just as I did before. I shall keep the door a little way open. It was a little way open last year. I will watch the sitting-room door; and the moment it moves I will blow out my light. It all happened in that way on my birthday night. And it must all happen again in the same way, mustn't it?"
"Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?"