“No, certainly not,” said Hugh.  “I see you do understand, Marcelline, better than anybody.  It must be as I said; there must be two of me, and two of Jeanne, and two of you, and——­”

“And two of everything,” said Marcelline; “and the great thing is to keep each of the twos in its right place.”

She smiled now, right out, and was turning away with the light in her hand, when Hugh called after her,

“Will the moonlight nights come again soon, Marcelline?  Do tell me.  I’m sure you know.”

“Have a little patience,” said the old nurse, “you shall be told.  Never fear.”

And, a little inclined to be impatient, Hugh was nevertheless obliged to shut his eyes and go to sleep.  There was no moonlight that night any way.

But not many nights after there came a great surprise.

Curiously enough Hugh had gone to sleep that night without any thought of tapestry adventures.  He and Jeanne had been very merry indeed; they had been dressing up, and playing delightful tricks—­such as tapping at the salon door, and on being told to come in, making their appearance like two very, very old peasants, hobbling along on sticks—­Jeanne with a cap and little knitted shawl of Marcelline’s, Hugh with a blouse and cotton nightcap, so that Jeanne’s mother quite jumped at first sight of the quaint little figures.  Then Jeanne dressed up like a fairy, and pretended to turn Hugh into a guinea-pig, and they got Nibble up into the nursery, and Hugh hid in a cupboard, and tried to make his voice sound as if it came from Nibble, and the effect of his ventriloquism was so comical that the children laughed till they actually rolled on the floor.  And they had hardly got over the laughing—­though Marcelline did her best to make them sit still for half an hour or so before going to bed—­when it was time to say good-night and compose themselves to sleep.

“I shan’t be able to go to sleep for ever so long,” said Hugh; “I shall stay awake all the night, I believe.”

“Oh no, you won’t,” said Marcelline, with a smile, as she went off with the light.

And strange to say, hardly had she shut the door when Hugh did fall asleep—­soundly asleep.  He knew no more about who he was, or where he was, or anything—­he just slept as soundly as a little top, without dreaming or starting in the least, for—­dear me, I don’t know for how long!—­any way it must have been for several hours, when—­in the strange sudden way in which once or twice before it had happened to him to awake in this curious tapestry room, he opened his eyes as if startled by an electric shock, and gazed out before him, as much awake as if he had never been asleep in his life.