The Frenchwoman looked up with a slight start, then smiled.

"Ah, it's you, nurse!" she murmured. "You do not mind my being here, do you?"

Esther stood still for a second, trying not to betray that she was annoyed. Why couldn't the woman leave her poor husband alone? Recalling the doctor's injunction to her, she wondered how she could convey the needed hint to Lady Clifford without giving offence.

"Did you want anything, Sir Charles?" she inquired a little pointedly, coming forward and gently taking the pillow out of Lady Clifford's hand.

"No, nothing at all," the patient replied somewhat fretfully.

"I thought he seemed so—so terribly hot," explained the Frenchwoman with a note of apology. "I always think when one is ill…"

She left her sentence unfinished while her eyes took a quick survey of the smooth sheet. Words Sir Charles had spoken a little while ago in regard to his wife's "fidgeting about his pillow" recurred to Esther.

"Were you looking for something, Lady Clifford?" she asked, cheerfully bland.

The Frenchwoman shot her a glance, her beautiful eyes wide with surprised negation.

"Mais non," she replied with a graceful shrug. "But why do you ask that?"

"I beg your pardon," murmured Esther, confused by the other's sweeping repudiation.

She settled the invalid on his pillow once more, noting the ghost of an ironical smile that flitted over his features. Between half-shut lids he watched the two women with an amused appreciation.

"I think, perhaps, it would be as well if you said good-night to him now, Lady Clifford," hinted Esther tactfully. "In a short time I am going to begin getting him ready for the night, and I like to have him absolutely quiet before-hand."

Hoping her suggestion would prove sufficient, she started removing flowers from the room. When she returned she saw Lady Clifford kiss the patient's cheek, then straighten up, wrap her nÉgligÉ closer about her slender body, and move towards the door.

"Bon soir, mon cher," she called softly, kissing her finger-tips to him, "dors bien!"

So charming, so transparently appealing … yet she had been looking for something under the pillow, Esther was convinced of it. Sir Charles, she thought, realised it, too. But what was it she had been trying to discover? Suddenly she recalled the will that Roger had taken out of the safe that morning. Ah! Lady Clifford wanted to have a look at it; she was nervous for some reason. It was like old Sir Charles to keep his intentions closely guarded.

Several times that evening she noticed that Roger's gaze rested on her with interest. She was feminine enough to wonder if he thought she looked nice in the little wine-red frock she had put on. It was such a relief to get out of her stiff uniform that she always managed to change for dinner when there was sufficient time.

As a matter of fact, Roger was thinking as she sat there on a low stool, one foot curled under her, that she looked absurdly young, hardly more than a little girl. He believed she could be frivolous, too, gay without being silly, as he put it. So few girls could achieve that….

"Do you like dancing?" he demanded abruptly.

"Do I not!"

"Then I'll tell you what we'll do. To-morrow evening we'll run down to the Casino for dinner and dance a bit. Would you care to?"

"It would be heavenly! But do I dare?"

She glanced at Miss Clifford.

"Why on earth not, my dear? When you're off duty, your time's your own. You needn't stay very late, if you're afraid of over-sleeping in the morning."

"Well, then, I will," Esther promised, her eyes shining with pleasure.

"Good girl! We'll have a regular beano. We both need it."

In the seclusion of her room that night Esther took out her best new evening gown, bought in Paris, and examined it with satisfaction. She had worn it only once; it had been a present from Miss Ferriss. Layers of filmy chiffon, peach-coloured, it presented a delectable picture as she spread it out on the bed. There was a shaggy diaphanous flower of silver gauze to wear on the shoulder, and the shoes that went with it were silver kid, well cut and severe.

"It is adorable," she sighed gloatingly, as she fingered the delicate mass. "What luck to have it here where there are so many smart dresses!"

She held it up in front of the mirror. Yes, this shade of pink suited her perfectly; it brought out the bronze tones in her hair and heightened the rose in her cheeks.

"I wonder if he likes me, too," she mused. "Or if I'm merely something to dance with? Never mind, it doesn't matter. I do need a little gaiety. I hope the doctor won't object—but why should he? I'm not going to neglect my job. Still, he might; he's queer. That's the worst of having the doctor living in the house. Such a nuisance!"

She spent halt an hour manicuring her nails and then, still feeling wide-awake, decided on a bath. The bathroom was between her room and the doctor's. On entering she found it, as usual, so stiflingly hot that she was obliged to throw open the casement window and let the cool, moist air steal into the room. For several minutes she leaned out, breathing in the night odours of the dark garden. With them came a heavier odour that was familiar, the acrid, pungent smell of the doctor's tobacco. By it she could tell that he, too, had his window open; he was sitting close to it, reading and smoking. She had no idea how he spent his evenings, but when she came to bed his light was always on. What an odd, self-contained, saturnine creature he was! There was something so ponderous, so logical, so crushing about him. Yes, that described him best, crushing. She always felt that he was ready to flatten her out….

Somewhere near at hand a door opened and closed again. Before she could decide what door it was she heard the low rumble of the doctor's voice addressing someone.

"Well," she heard him say somewhat brusquely, "what is it now?"

It was the exasperated tone one might employ to a rather tiresome child. She found herself listening idly, wondering who it was who had come into his room. A second later, with a slight shock, she recognised the unmistakable tones of Lady Clifford. As on a former occasion, she was puzzled to know how it was the doctor spoke to her in so peremptory a fashion. She could not catch the words of the Frenchwoman, but the doctor's reply was clearly audible.

"That was wrong of you," he was saying. "I distinctly told you not to try. Besides, I am sure you exaggerate the importance of it."

Lady Clifford's next speech, uttered in a querulous tone, was distinguishable, from which Esther concluded she had come closer to the window.

"But I tell you I must know the truth! I cannot rest until I find out.
Something warns me he has done something … damnable!"

"You will know soon enough."

"But, mon Dieu, when I know it will be too late!"

She seemed almost in tears. The doctor waited a little before replying, in accents of unmoved calm:

"Rubbish! How did this idea come to you?"

"I will tell you." The woman's voice was eager, importunate. "In January, when we were in Paris, he went to see Hamilton, his English solicitor. I thought nothing of it at the time, but a few days ago something he said made me think—made me afraid—— I don't know what he may have done. He is capable of anything, everything! I tell you, I am terrified!"

Esther, by the bathroom window, nodded to herself with satisfaction at the confirmation of her theory. So it had been the will Lady Clifford was trying to see! Matters were clearing up. She heard Sartorius say sceptically:

"Don't be a fool! Go back to your room; this is neither the time nor the place for these conferences. I have told you that before."

There was a faint murmured protest, then again the doctor's voice, heavy and intolerant:

"Good God, woman, what possible difference can he make, or anyone else, for that matter? You appear to overlook the fact that all is being done for your husband that can be done. There is not the slightest cause for alarm."

Another murmur, longer than before, then in a slightly modified tone, though still dictatorial:

"I see no reason why you shouldn't sleep, but if you insist I will give you something…. Here, one powder, not more, or I'll not be answerable for the consequences…. And remember, don't come here again. If you want me, send your maid for me. Good-night."

There was the faint sound of the door dosing, then silence. Esther shut the window cautiously, so that her neighbour might not suspect he had been overheard.

Exactly why she minded his knowing was not clear to her. There had certainly been nothing wrong in the conversation. It was the doctor's manner towards his employer that was strange, that was all. She found herself puzzling about it after she was in bed. Her brain was very active; she could not compose herself to sleep, though when she tried to analyse her state of mind there seemed little to cause her vague discomfort. She knew that many women made confidants of their medical men; there was nothing surprising in Lady Clifford's unburdening herself to Sartorius on the subject of her husband's will. The overbearing familiarity with which the doctor treated her was harder to understand, yet even there it was difficult to say there was anything abnormal. It merely suggested that these two had known each other a long time, had not, indeed, the formal relation of physician and patient. Whatever the case, there was nothing one could definitely say was wrong, yet…

"I don't in the least know why," she said to herself as she lay in bed, "but I've got a feeling there is something queer going on in this house—something—something underhand. There! I've said it."

Yet, admitting this, what could be wrong? Not surely anything to do with Sir Charles's case, which was a straightforward affair? The patient was progressing well, with every reasonable hope of recovery. To the outward eye, at least, everything was smooth and normal….

Why was it she suddenly recalled an incident of many years back, dating from her childhood in Manitoba? One of her sisters had played a trick on her. On going to bed one night, she had turned back the smooth, white counterpane of her bed to find, to her horror, a whole nest of young garden-snakes curled up together between the sheets. The exterior of the bed had given not the slightest inkling of the loathsome contents, so carefully had her sister tidied the clothes. Perverse that this particular incident should have come to her now out of the past!

Esther was not psychic, she was not even given to premonitions. Yet she knew that she was sensitive to the emotional states and conflicts of those about her. She had always been able, on entering a room full of people, to tell instinctively if anything was amiss, though whether her faculty was purely intuitional or merely the delicate functioning of a mental process she was unable to say, any more than a person suffering from "cat-fear" can tell how he detects the presence of the hidden cat, whether the warning comes out of the blue, or is the result of finely developed olfactory nerves.

In the present instance, having no tangible grounds for her conviction, she became exasperated and made repeated resolutions to put the entire thing out of mind. It was no use; she was wide awake, over-excited, the room felt hot, the cover got in her way. Why on earth were French sheets so many yards long? This one kept coming up about her neck and stifling her. Again and again she flung it back, until a final gesture of fury brought her hand in contact with a hard object, which fell with a clatter to the floor. It was her small alarm-clock. She picked it up and set it on the table beside her, where it ticked busily away.

How long it was before the welcome tide of drowsiness engulfed her she did not know. She hardly realised she had been asleep when gradually she became aware of something heavy lying across her body, pressing down upon her with an inert weight. The unpleasant consciousness grew, she wanted to rid herself of the incubus, but she felt curiously drugged, impotent. The weight increased; at the same time it seemed to have life of a certain sort, slow-moving and lethargic; it crept upward slowly, always pressing heavily upon her. She was cramped, her body ached, her breath came with difficulty, she turned and twisted, tried to free her arms, but they were pinioned close to her sides. What was the Thing thus crushing her? She strained to see, but the darkness was like black velvet; she could see nothing, only feel, breathlessly, chokingly. A horrible idea assailed her. Whatever it was, it was striving to suffocate her—yes, and it was going to succeed, unless she could muster the strength to cast it off.

Panic seized her. She struggled, possessed by a mad terror; she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came, her voice was paralysed like the rest of her. Up and up crept the weight, it reached her throat, she felt it graze her chin. Its touch was cold and scaly; she shuddered at the contact. At the same dreadful moment she realised what the Thing was. Instantly her vision cleared as if an inky cloud had rolled away, and she stared with starting eyes into the small, cold eyes of a python!

The flat head was drawing slowly nearer, the mouth opened, she saw the darting tongue—the creature was going to bite. Then with a rush her voice came back; she screamed aloud…