One might easily imagine it to be the tapping of ghostly fingers--of the fingers of pretty Janet Merryweather--some quarter of a century earlier.

Her daughter was hardly more than twenty now, he supposed, and he wondered how long the mad idyllic period had lasted before her birth?
Turning to the books on the table, he opened one and a yellowed fragment of paper fluttered to the floor at his feet.

When he stooped after it, he saw that there was a single word on it traced faintly in his uncle's hand: "To-morrow." And then, being a person whose imagination dealt with the obvious, he undressed, blew out the light, and fell peacefully asleep to the dropping of acorns..