And my explanation came in this way.  I had suffered a sleepless night from neuralgia, and about midday I had taken a heavy dose of chlorodyne to alleviate the pain.  At that time I was finishing the indexing of Sir John Bollamore’s library, and it was my custom to work there from five till seven.  On this particular day I struggled against the double effect of my bad night and the narcotic.  I have already mentioned that there was a recess in the library, and in this it was my habit to work.  I settled down steadily to my task, but my weariness overcame me and, falling back upon the settee, I dropped into a heavy sleep.

How long I slept I do not know, but it was quite dark when I awoke.  Confused by the chlorodyne which I had taken, I lay motionless in a semi-conscious state.  The great room with its high walls covered with books loomed darkly all round me.  A dim radiance from the moonlight came through the farther window, and against this lighter background I saw that Sir John Bollamore was sitting at his study table.  His well-set head and clearly cut profile were sharply outlined against the glimmering square behind him.  He bent as I watched him, and I heard the sharp turning of a key and the rasping of metal upon metal.  As if in a dream I was vaguely conscious that this was the japanned box which stood in front of him, and that he had drawn something out of it, something squat and uncouth, which now lay before him upon the table.  I never realized—­it never occurred to my bemuddled and torpid brain that I was intruding upon his privacy, that he imagined himself to be alone in the room.  And then, just as it rushed upon my horrified perceptions, and I had half risen to announce my presence, I heard a strange, crisp, metallic clicking, and then the voice.

Yes, it was a woman’s voice; there could not be a doubt of it.  But a voice so charged with entreaty and with yearning love, that it will ring for ever in my ears.  It came with a curious faraway tinkle, but every word was clear, though faint—­very faint, for they were the last words of a dying woman.

“I am not really gone, John,” said the thin, gasping voice.  “I am here at your very elbow, and shall be until we meet once more.  I die happy to think that morning and night you will hear my voice.  Oh, John, be strong, be strong, until we meet again.”

I say that I had risen in order to announce my presence, but I could not do so while the voice was sounding.  I could only remain half lying, half sitting, paralysed, astounded, listening to those yearning distant musical words.  And he—­he was so absorbed that even if I had spoken he might not have heard me.  But with the silence of the voice came my half articulated apologies and explanations.  He sprang across the room, switched on the electric light, and in its white glare I saw him, his eyes gleaming with anger, his face twisted with passion, as the hapless charwoman may have seen him weeks before.