For a moment he stood leaning heavily against its timbers, his breath coming in short panting sobs.

Then he steadied himself and turning, made his way down the corridor to the little study which had been fitted up for him in the residential wing, and where sometimes he worked at night.

He had been writing there that evening ever since dinner, and he had quitted the room only to go to his assignation with Samoval, leaving the lamp burning on his open desk.
He opened the door, but before passing in he paused a moment, straining his ears to listen for sounds overhead.

His eyes, glancing up and down, were arrested by a thin blade of light under a door at the end of the corridor.

It was the door of the butler's pantry, and the line of light announced that Mullins had not yet gone to bed.