"It's on the stroke of eleven." Zack muttered something savage in reply, which it is not perhaps advisable to report.

The servant secured the lock and bolts, while he put his hat on the hall table, and lit his bedroom candle.
* * * * * Rather more than an hour after this time--or, in other words, a little past midnight--the door opened again softly, and Zack appeared on the step, equipped for his nocturnal expedition.
He hesitated, as he put the key into the lock from outside, before he closed the door behind him.

He had never done this on former occasions; he could not tell why he did it now.

We are mysteries even to ourselves; and there are times when the Voices of the future that are in us, yet not ours, speak, and make the earthly part of us conscious of their presence.

Oftenest our mortal sense feels that they are breaking their dread silence at those supreme moments of existence, when on the choice between two apparently trifling alternatives hangs suspended the whole future of a life.