The Stone Image

"Insomnia!" I scouted. "Why, man, Betty sleeps like a top; she sleeps as well as I do, and I'm almost as hard to rouse as Lazarus."

Doctor Towbridge lit a fresh cigar and stared for a minute at the rows of near-colonial villas racing past the car windows. "Did Mrs. Haig ever walk in her sleep as a child?" he asked. "Somnambulism may have the same effect as insomnia, you know."

Now, Betty and I had known each other just three months when we were married; so I had no more idea whether she had walked in her sleep as a child than I had what colored pinafores she wore when she was attending kindergarten. But Doctor Towbridge's question gave me to think. Suppose Betty were sleepwalking! And our sleeping rooms were on the second floor. Good Lord, if she were to walk through an open window! I determined then and there to do some watchful waiting that night.

But if the old saying concer