And while she listened, the measured breathing was broken by a soft, startled cry, such as one utters in a troubled dream.

This chance occurrence furnished her instantly with a plan worth all her laboured tests combined.

She at once set herself feverishly, but noiselessly, to work to relight her candle, muttering to herself, "Had I but seen him THEN, I should have known! Since that day, when he was little, that the powder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out of his dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand before his eyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do it, with the palm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--I have seen it a hundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed.

Yes, I shall soon know, now!" By this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with the candle, shaded, in her hand.

She bent heedfully and warily over him, scarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed the light in his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles.