That sense of loneliness had come upon her suddenly as she had watched the young man’s retreating figure.  She could not help thinking of him even when her mind was oppressed with anxiety on her father’s account.  In a vague way she remembered how kind this stranger had been; how quietly, and with what an air of protection, he had stood by her and restrained her from crying out and alarming her father.  As vaguely, she remembered that in the moment of her terror she had clung to him, had forgotten under the great strain that he was a stranger—­and a man.  Even now she did not know his name, knew nothing of him except that he was staying at The Woodman Inn.

Kind and considerate as he had been she thought of him with something like resentment; it was as if he had stepped into her life, had intruded upon its quiet uneventfulness.  He had no right to be there, no right, to have seen her father in that terrible condition, that death in life.  And she had behaved like a frightened servant-maid; had not only clung to him—­had she clung to him, or was it only fancy?—­but had left him without a word of thanks, had allowed him to wait there, and then had waved her hand to him just as she had seen Jessie, the maid, wave her hand to her “young man” after they had parted, and she was going into the house.

She bit her lip softly and a faint flush rose to the clear pallor of the lovely, girlish face reflected in the glass.  Yes, she had behaved just like a servant-maid, she who in her heart of hearts knew that she prided herself upon her dignity and the good manners which should belong to a Heron of Herondale.  It was characteristic of her that while she thought of his conduct and what she considered her bad behaviour, she gave no thought to the fact that the stranger who had so “intruded” was singularly handsome and possessed of that strange quality which at once impresses women.  Most girls would have remembered the fact, but Ida was different to the general run of her sex.  She had been brought up in an out-of-the-way place in which the modern novel, the fashionable pastime of flirtation, were not known; and her secluded life in the lonely dale had deepened that sense of aloofness from the world, that indifference to the sentiment which lurks in most girls’ bosoms.  This tall, handsome man who had stepped into her life and shared the secret of her father’s strange affliction, weakness, was nothing more to her than one of the other tourists whom she sometimes chanced to see on her lonely rides and walks.

When she had undressed she went again to her father’s door and listened to his deep and regular breathing; then, at last, she went to bed; but the sense of loneliness was so intense that she lay awake for hours thinking of that bent figure walking in its sleep from the shadows of the ruined chapel.  For the future she would have to watch her father closely, would perhaps have to lock the door of his room.  Why had he gone to the chapel?  So far as she knew he was not in the habit of going there; indeed, she did not remember having seen him go there in his waking moments.  She knew nothing of somnambulism; but she imagined that he had gone in that direction by mere chance, that if he had happened to find any impediment in his way he might as easily have gone in another direction.