“Yes, you!  Where’s the sense of your sitting up?  Master Piers knows how to undress himself by this time, I suppose?”

Sir Beverley scowled at him aggressively, but Victor did not even see the scowl.  Like a hen with one chick, and that gone astray, he could think of naught beside.

“Mais Monsieur Pierre is not here!  Where then is Monsieur Pierre?” he questioned in distress.

“How the devil should I know?” snarled Sir Beverley.  “Stop your chatter and be off with you!  Shut the window first, and then go and tell David to lock up!  I shan’t want anything more to-night.”

Victor shrugged his shoulders in mute protest, and went to the window.  Here he paused, looking forth with eyes of eager searching till recalled to his duty by a growl of impatience from his master.  Then with a celerity remarkable in one of his years and rotundity, he quickly popped in his head and closed the window.

“Leave the blind!” ordered Sir Beverley.  “And the catch too!  There!  Now go! Allez-vous-en!?  Don’t let me see you again to-night!”

Victor threw a single shrewd glance at the drawn face, and trotted with a woman’s nimbleness to the door.  Here he paused, executed a stiff bow; then wheeled and departed.  The door closed noiselessly behind him, and again Sir Beverley was left alone.

He dragged a chair to the window, and sat down to watch.

Doubtless the boy would return when he had walked off his indignation.  He would be sure to see the light in the study, and he would come to him for admittance.  He himself would receive him with a gruff word or two of admonition and the whole affair should be dismissed.  Grimly he pictured the scene to himself as, ignoring the anxiety that was growing within him, he settled himself to his lonely vigil.

Slowly the night dragged on.  A couple of owls were hooting to one another across the garden, and far away a dog barked at intervals.  Old Sir Beverley never stirred in his chair.  His limbs were rigid, his eyes fixed and watchful.  But his face was grey—­grey and stricken and incredibly old.  He had the look of a man who carried a burden too heavy to be borne.

One after another he heard the hours strike, but his position never altered, his eyes never varied, his face remained as though carved in granite—­a graven image of despair.  Unspeakable weariness was in his pose, and yet he did not relax or yield a hair’s breadth to the body’s importunity.  He suffered too bitterly in the spirit that night to be aware of physical necessity.

Slowly the long hours passed.  The night began to wane.  A faint grey glimmer, scarcely perceptible, came down from a mist-veiled sky.  The wind that had sunk to stillness came softly back and wandered to and fro as though to rouse the sleeping world.  Behind the mist the stars went out, and from the rookery in the park a hoarse voice suddenly proclaimed the coming day.