had missed his way in his bedroom.  Wogan laughed to himself and started off again; and the next thing which his outstretched hands touched was a doorknob.  The table should now be a little way to his left.  He was just turning away in that direction, when it occurred to him that he ought to have felt the rim of the top bar of his tilted chair underneath the door-handle.  He stooped down and felt for the chair; there was no chair, and he stood very still.

The fears bred of imagination had now left him; he was restored by the shock of an actual danger.  He leaned forward quietly and felt if the key was still in the lock.  But there was no lock to this door.  Wogan felt the surface of the door; it was of paper.  It was plainly the door of a cupboard in the wall, papered after the same pattern as the wall, which by the flickering light of his single candle he had overlooked.

He opened the door and stretched out his arms into the cupboard.  He touched something that moved beneath his hand, a stiff, short crop of hair, the hair of a man’s head.  He drew his arm away as though an adder had stung it; he did not utter a cry or make a movement.  He stood for a moment paralysed, and during that moment a strong hand caught him by the throat.

Wogan was borne backwards, his assailant sprang at him from the cupboard, he staggered under the unexpected vigour of the attack, he clutched his enemy, and the two men came to the ground with a crash.  Even as he fell Wogan thought, “Gaydon would never have overlooked that cupboard.”

It was the only reflection, however, for which he could afford time.  He was undermost, and the hand at his throat had the grip of a steel glove.  He fought with blows from his fists and his bent knees; he twisted his legs about the legs of his enemy; he writhed his body if so he might dislodge him; he grappled wildly for his throat.  But all the time his strength grew less; he felt that his temples were swelling, and it seemed to him that his eyes must burst.  The darkness of the room was spotted with sparks of fire; the air was filled with a continuous roar like a million chariots in a street.  He saw the face of his chosen woman, most reproachful and yet kind, gazing at him from behind the bars which now would never be broken, and then there came a loud banging at the door.  The summons surprised them both, so hotly had they been engaged, so unaware were they of the noise which their fall had made.

Wogan felt his assailant’s hand relax and heard him say in a low muffled voice, “It is nothing.  Go to bed!  I fell over a chair in the dark.”