“Yes?” she whispered.  “Yes?”

And her strange eyes, with pin-point pupils in a yellow green circle, seemed to follow something which crept slowly round the bare walls as far as the chintz window-curtain moving softly in the breeze of the coming dawn.  The room was full of shadows thrown by a creeper festooned outside the wide-open window; soft whisperings brought from the distant corners of the earth by the restless ocean filled the air, as she hastily twisted her hair into two great plaits with steady hands.

Then she slipped quietly to the edge of the bed and searched with her bare feet for the crimson slippers; searched fearfully as though afraid of what they might touch whilst her eyes glanced this way and that through the shadowed room.

“Who is calling me?” she whispered.  “Who wants me?”

But there was no sound save for the whispering of the distant sea.

She bent her head sideways as though to listen, rose to her feet, and standing back against the bed, looked down at the shadows which danced about the hem of her garment.  A swift furtive glance over her shoulder and her hand stole to the crimson kimono hanging on the brass rail, whilst a jewelled cat’s-eye winked cunningly among the embroidery of her night-robe.

“Come in,” she said suddenly and sharply, “don’t stand outside the door, come in.”

And when there came no answer she thrust her arms swiftly into the sleeves of the crimson kimono, and running across the room flung open the door, and finding the corridor empty passed hurriedly on, leaving the door wide so that the shadows skipped freakishly about the room in tune to the rhythmical whisperings which the sea bore from the distant corners of the earth.

CHAPTER XI

  “Thy brother Death came, and cried,
    ‘Wouldst thou me?’
  And I replied,
    ‘No, not thee!’”—­Shelley.

The electric lights gave out a kind of fictitious radiance against the dull grey of the hall windows through which the dawn was struggling.

The place was packed with girls.  Some clustered near the baize door, standing nervously on tip-toe and with the intent of retiring precipitately if there should be any sign of the Principal; others hung over the stair or gallery banisters; the domestic staff stood round their own particular door, their white faces shining dully like Chinese lanterns; no one spoke or moved.  In fact they might have been posing for a photographer until those above suddenly swayed and bent this way and that, and those in the hall parted to give way to Leonie.

Clad in crimson satin kimono, with feet thrust into crimson satin slippers and her hastily plaited hair hanging in two great ropes, she passed through them like a flame, emanating strength and resolve and a tremendous power of will.  Although she looked neither to the right nor left as she ran swiftly and disappeared into the wing where lay her little friend, there was something very pleasing in the way the girls put out their hands to touch her as she passed; and something distinctly encouraging in the whispered remarks that followed her, and which might be summarised in the “Now it’s all right,” which under the high pressure of intense excitement almost burst from the lips of Annie Smith.