I could easily escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I must think of now, this hour, this moment.

How came I to stay so long! In feverish haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet limbs, the accusing face.

Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood their strange protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half way across the floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason was not unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door below, mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.
It was the police.

The wild night, the biting storm had been of no avail.
An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on my part was at an end.

Yet because at such crises instinct rises superior to reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into the hall.