If he did not, I should know he was still here.

If he did, I should be the better for seeing his features, and learning, perhaps, other things that might be of use to me in the future.
Making up my mind to the uncomfortable, I sat down on the floor by the lattice, and began a vigil that might last, I knew, until morning.

It did last about an hour, at the end of which time I heard whispering below, then footsteps; then, as some persons turned a corner, a voice speaking aloud and carelessly.

I could not catch the words or meaning, but the voice was a gentleman's, and its bold accents and masterful tone left me in no doubt that the speaker was M.de Cocheforet himself.
Hoping to learn more, I pressed my face nearer to the opening, and had just made out through the gloom two figures--one that of a tall, slight man, wearing a cloak, the other, I fancied, a woman's, in a sheeny white dress--when a thundering rap on the door of my garret made me spring back a yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on my couch.

The summons was repeated.
'Well ?' I cried, rising on my elbow, and cursing the untimely interruption.