“Go to bed, child!” he said.  “And stay there till you feel better!”

She obeyed him, feeling that she had no choice, yet still too anxious to sleep.  He brought her a glass of hot milk when she was in bed, remarking that her supper had been a poor one, and she drank in feverish haste, yearning to be left alone.  Then, when he had gone, she tormented herself by wondering if he had noticed anything strange in her manner, if he thought that she were going to be ill and so would perhaps mount guard over her.

A chafing sense of impotence came upon her.  It would be terrible to fail now after all she had undergone.  She lay listening, straining every nerve.  He would be sure to smoke his pipe on the stoep before turning in.  That was the opportunity that she must seize.  She dared not leave it till the morrow.  He might ask for the key of the strong-box at any time.  But still she did not hear him moving beyond the closed door, and she wondered if he could have fallen asleep in the sitting-room.  A heavy drowsiness was beginning to creep over her notwithstanding her uneasiness.  She fought against it with all her strength, but it gained ground in spite of her.  Her brain felt clogged with weariness.

She began to doze, waking with violent starts and listening, drifting back to slumber ever more deeply, till at last actual sleep possessed her, and for a space she lay in complete oblivion.

It must have been a full hour later that she became suddenly conscious again, with every faculty on the alert, and remembered the task still unfulfilled.  It was almost as if a voice—­Guy’s voice—­had called her, urging her to action.

The room was full of moonlight, and she could see every object in it as clearly as if it had been day.  The precious packet was under her pillow with the key of the strong-box.  She felt for and grasped them both almost instinctively before she looked round, and then, on the verge of raising herself, her newly awakened eyes lighted upon something which sent all the blood in a wild rush to her heart.  A man’s figure was kneeling motionless at the foot of the bed.

She lay and gazed and gazed, hardly believing her senses, wondering if the moonlight could have tricked her.  He was so still, he might have been a figure wrought in marble.  His face was hidden on his arms, but there was that in his attitude that sent a stab of wonder through her.  Was it—­was it Guy kneeling there in an abandonment of despair?  Had he followed her like a wandering outcast now that his master Kieff was gone?  If so, but no—­but no!  Surely it was a dream.  Guy was far away.  This was but the fantasy of her own brain.  Guy could never have come to her thus.  And yet, was it not Guy’s voice that had called her from her sleep?

A great quiver went through her.  What if Guy had died in the night far away in Brennerstadt?  What if this were his spirit come to hold commune with hers.  Was she not dearer to him than anyone else in the world?  Would he not surely seek her before he passed on?