I placed
myself--outside the door also--on the opposite side. A recess in the
wall was at my left hand, in which I could instantly hide myself, if he
showed any signs of looking back into the corridor.
He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his
hand: he looked about him--but he never looked back.
I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom, standing ajar. She had put
out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of
her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it
beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the
room. She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped
her.
It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence, the
soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air through
the trees.
After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the
room, he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet
stood.
He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one
drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock
Diamond was put.
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