Fifteen minutes crawled by, and then a half-hour. The electric lights came on; the windows in the dome darkened steadily; Julia waited in growing apprehension with her thoughts revolving as upon a treadmill. Should she not go to his rooms and see if he was there, to warn him? But warn him of what? To know exactly where and when the danger lay, she would have to see the book… but then the rational part of her mind would rise up in protest, only to be subdued in turn by a vivid recollection of the immense woman bearing the coffin-shaped parcel, so that she sat paralysed between these warring inner factions until an attendant came to inform her that no record of any such volume could be found. Julia returned at once to the catalogue; she could visualise the position of the entry quite clearly, in the top right-hand quarter of a right-hand page, but realised, when it did not appear in the expected place, that she had absolutely no recollection of its surroundings. Because new entries were constantly being pasted in, their order was not always precisely alphabetical, but she searched many pages in either direction without finding what she sought. This, however, only heightened her sense of foreboding. It was black night outside; she could delay no longer, no matter what humiliation might follow. But if she were not home soon, even her husband might become anxious enough to initiate a search. Hastily scribbling a note to say that she would be dining with Marianne, Julia gathered up her things and rushed from the Reading Room.
The night air was damp and still, with a hint of mist about the street lamps, as Julia rang the bell at the street door below Frederick's rooms. There was a long wait, made even longer by the combined weight of foreboding and painful recall, before the door was opened by an ancient porter.
Her apprehension increased with every one of the seemingly endless flights of stairs, and she was obliged to pause even longer than was necessary to recover her breath before she could summon the courage to knock at Frederick's door. All had been silent within; at the sound of her tapping the silence seemed only to deepen; then there was a muffled thud, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps and a clatter of locks and bolts being undone. Almost worse than the dread of what she might encounter was the resurgence of a hope so long repressed, a hope that flared wildly at the first sight of his face, so pale and gaunt and worn, suddenly radiant with an answering joy. She had crossed the threshold and flung her arms around him-feeling at once how dreadfully thin he had become-and kissed him with all the passion of her resurrected love, before the name he was so tenderly murmuring resolved itself as, undeniably; "Lydia".
Julia disengaged herself and drew back, searching the well-remembered face for some sign of recognition. It was, and yet was not, the Frederick of old: unshaven, clad in a crumpled shirt and trousers and a pair of old carpet slippers, with a frayed green dressing-gown over his shoulders, his hair even longer and more disorderly, but lacking its former lustre. His adoring expression did not change, but he seemed to be gazing through rather than at her face. For a moment she feared that he was blind, until he evidently noticed the open door, which he reached out and closed behind her. As it clicked shut, an expression of bewilderment crossed his face; he looked from her-or rather, from the person he evidently saw in her place-to the door and back again.
"It is finished, and you have come," he said in a strange abstracted tone, "but I expected… I thought you would have…"
He trailed off, glancing towards the French windows, which Julia saw were open to the night. Despite the fire burning in the grate opposite, she felt the chill draught from the balcony. She did not want to understand his implication, nor did she wish to believe him mad. Might he be sleep-walking? And if he stood, as it were, in the midst of a dream of Lydia, might he not be woken…? But even as she opened her mouth to cry, I am Julia, not Lydia, the futility of it overwhelmed her. Dreaming or waking, Frederick had given his whole heart to a dead woman, and there was no room in it for the living; that love was ashes, and would arise no more.
Besides, she had somewhere read or heard that sleep-walkers should not be woken abruptly, but coaxed back to bed and watched until they fell into a true sleep, from which they would awaken with no recollection of the previous nights encounters. There flashed upon her the conviction that she understood the omens of recent days, for had she not come to him tonight, Frederick might well have plunged heedlessly to his death. The first thing, therefore, was to close the French windows; no, first get him safely into bed, then secure them.
"Frederick," she said, gently taking his arm, "you are very tired, and must rest now."
"Yes, I am very tired," he repeated. "But-you will not leave me, Lydia? Not now?" His voice rose and quavered on the last words.
"No, Frederick," said Julia sadly, "I will not leave you. But you must go to bed now, and sleep."
With that she led him slowly across the room, staying as far as possible from the dark doorway opening onto the night, and along the passageway to his bedroom, now dreadfully stale and disordered. He stood obediently, like a child, while she straightened the bedclothes as best she could and turned back the sheet; like a child he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his slippers and dressing-gown, then immediately lay down and composed himself for sleep. His eyes had closed before Julia had settled the bedclothes about his shoulders, and within the space of a minute the rhythm of his breathing had slowed and deepened. She watched him for a few minutes more, recalling how often and how ardently she had yearned to watch over Frederick whilst he slept. Now her prayer had been answered, and all she could feel was a profound weariness of spirit. His breathing slowed still further; Julia would have liked to open the window, but was afraid of disturbing him, and so turned down the gas and went back to the sitting-room.
She had meant to close the french windows immediately, but the staleness of the bedroom seemed to have followed her down the passage, and it was not, after all, especially cold; she would close one side and leave the other open for the moment. But on her way over, her attention was drawn to the desk beneath the right-hand window. A lamp burned beside the portrait of Lydia, placed so that it also illuminated a loose sheaf of papers, which were secured by a crystal paperweight Julia was uncomfortably reminded of a votive offering. The uppermost sheet bore two stanzas in Frederick's small, precise hand: The midnight moth besieg'd the lamp,
The magic casement opened wide;
I heard at last the soft wing-heat
Of my returning bride; And, as I hand still farther out
Upon the unresisting night,
Saw my beloved hovering near,
Enraptur'd with the gift of flight
The ink looked quite fresh, as if this were the final page of a fair copy which had not yet been put into its proper order. Julia drew out the chair and sat down, meaning to examine the rest of the manuscript, but found herself intimidated by Lydia's cool, proprietorial stare, which in the lamplight seemed unnervingly watchful. She stretched out a hand to turn the pictures eyes away from hers, but as she leaned forward, her foot thudded against something hollow beneath the desk. There was, indeed, scarcely enough room for her feet, and she bent down to see what the obstruction was. A window-box? No; too low, and she had felt it move. But its proportions were somehow familiar. A black, rectangular box, about three feet long: some musical instrument, perhaps? Curiosity impelled her to set aside her chair and draw the thing out from beneath the desk. It proved surprisingly light for its size. No doubt it would be locked; but the first of the three silver catches snapped open when she touched the knob; the other two followed suit, so there could be no harm in raising the lid.