"Hm!" he murmured, with complacent satisfaction that included victory,
"I've stopped you!"
There was a curious, long-drawn sound as the machinery ran down; the
chains quivered, then hung motionless. There was disaster in the
sound, but laughter too--the laughter of the culprit caught in the
act, unmasked, exposed at last. "But I've had a good time these last
hundred years," he seemed to hear, with the obvious answer this
insolence suggested: "Caught! You're It!"--in a tone that was not
wholly unlike Maria's.
He turned and left the kitchen as stealthily as he had entered it. He
went along the cold stone corridor, through the green baize doors, and
so up the softly carpeted stairs to his bedroom. He undressed and
rolled solemnly between the sheets. He sighed deeply, but he did not
move again. He fell instantly into the right position for sleep.
But while he slept, the timeless night brought up its mystery. Moored
outside against the walls an Extra Day lay swinging from the stars.
The waves of Time washed past its sides, yet could not move it. The
wind was in the rigging; it lay at anchor, filling the sky with a
beauty of eternity.
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