But he powerfully desired not to steal the notes, or any of them.  The image of Rachel rose between him and his temptation.  Her honesty, candour, loyalty, had revealed to him the beauty of the ways of righteousness.  He had been born again in her glance.  He swore he would do nothing unworthy of the ideal she had unconsciously set up in him.  He admitted that it was supremely essential for him to restore the notes to the spot whence he had removed them....  And yet—­if he did so, and was lost?  What then?  For one second he saw himself in the dock at the police-court in the town hall.  Awful hallucination!  If it became reality, what use, then, his obedience to the new ideal?  Better to accomplish this one act of treason to the ideal in order to be able for ever afterwards to obey it and to look Rachel in the eyes!  Was it not so?  He wanted advice, he wanted to be confirmed in his own opportunism, as a starving beggar may want food.

And in the midst of all this torture of his vacillations, he was staggered and overwhelmed by the sudden noise of Mrs. Maldon’s door brusquely opening, and of an instant loud, firm knock on his own door.  The silence of the night was shattered as by an earthquake.

Almost mechanically he crushed the notes in his left hand—­crushed them into a ball; and the knuckles of that hand turned white with the muscular tension.

“Are you up?” a voice demanded.  It was Rachel’s voice.

“Ye-es,” he answered, and held his left hand over the screen in front of the fireplace.

“May I come in?”

And with the word she came in.  She was summarily dressed, and very pale, and her hair, more notable than ever, was down.  As she entered he opened his hand and let the ball of notes drop into the littered grate.

V

“Anything the matter?” he asked, moving away from the region of the hearth-rug.

She glanced at him with a kind of mild indulgence, as if to say:  “Surely you don’t suppose I should be wandering about in the night like this if nothing was the matter!”

She replied, speaking quickly and eagerly—­“I’m so glad you aren’t in bed.  I want you to go and fetch the doctor—­at once.”

“Auntie ill?”

She gave him another glance like the first, as if to say:  “I’m not ill, and you aren’t.  And Mrs. Maldon is the only other person in the house—­”

“I’ll go instantly,” he added in haste.  “Which doctor?”

“Yardley in Park Road.  It’s near the corner of Axe Street.  You’ll know it by the yellow gate—­even if his lamp isn’t lighted.”

“I thought old Hawley up at Hillport was auntie’s doctor.”

“I believe he is, but you couldn’t get up to Hillport in less than half an hour, could you?”

“Not so serious as all that, is it?”

“Well, you never know.  Best to be on the safe side.  It’s not quite like one of her usual attacks.  She’s been upset.  She actually went downstairs.”