they must know that noise would awaken the soundest sleepers."

My wife looked at me and then slowly withdrew her hands from my arm.

"You promise me," she said, "if you find a burglar downstairs in the
possession of his senses you will immediately come back to me and George
William?"

I promised her, and, slipping on some clothes, I went out into the
second-story hall. I carried no light. Before I had reached the bottom
of the back stairs I heard David, my man, coming down. To be sure it was
he and not a burglar I spoke to him in a low voice, my pistol raised in
case of an unsatisfactory reply.

"I heard that noise, sir," he whispered, "and was going down to see
about it."

"Are you ready if it's thieves?" I whispered.

"I have got the biscuit-beater," he replied.

"Come on, then," said I, and we went downstairs.

I had left no light in the library, but there was one there now, and it
shone through the open door into the hallway. We stopped and listened.
There was no sound, and then slowly and cautiously we approached the
door of the library. The scene I beheld astounded me, and involuntarily
I sprang back a step or two. So did David; but in an instant we saw that
there was no need of retreat or defence. Stretched upon the floor, not
far from the doorway, lay a tall man, his face upturned to the light of