“I fear I have wronged you much,” she went on.  “I do not mean some time ago.”  Here she hesitated. —­ “I fear I am the cause of your leaving Arnstead.”

“You, Euphra?  No.  You must be mistaken.”

“I think not.  But I am compelled to make an unwilling disclosure of a secret —­ a sad secret about myself.  Do not hate me quite —­ I am a somnambulist.”

She hid her face in her hands, as if the night which had now closed around them did not hide her enough.  Hugh did not reply.  Absorbed in the interest which both herself and her confession aroused in him, he could only listen eagerly.  She went on, after a moment’s pause: 

“I did not think at first that I had taken the ring.  I thought another had.  But last night, and not till then, I discovered that I was the culprit.”

“How?”

“That requires explanation.  I have no recollection of the events of the previous night when I have been walking in my sleep.  Indeed, the utter absence of a sense of dreaming always makes me suspect that I have been wandering.  But sometimes I have a vivid dream, which I know, though I can give no proof of it, to be a reproduction of some previous somnambulic experience.  Do not ask me to recall the horrors I dreamed last night.  I am sure I took the ring.”

“Then you dreamed what you did with it?”

“Yes, I gave it to —­”

Here her voice sank and ceased.  Hugh would not urge her.

“Have you mentioned this to Mr. Arnold?”

“No.  I do not think it would do any good.  But I will, if you wish it,” she added submissively.

“Not at all.  Just as you think best.”

“I could not tell him everything.  I cannot tell you everything.  If I did, Mr. Arnold would turn me out of the house.  I am a very unhappy girl, Mr. Sutherland.”

From the tone of these words, Hugh could not for a moment suppose that Euphra had any remaining design of fascination in them.

“Perhaps he might want to keep you, if I told him all; but I do not think, after the way he has behaved to you, that you could stay with him, for he would never apologize.  It is very selfish of me; but indeed I have not the courage to confess to him.”

“I assure you nothing could make me remain now.  But what can I do for you?”

“Only let me depend upon you, in case I should need your help; or —­”

Here Euphra stopped suddenly, and caught hold of Hugh’s left hand, which he had lifted to brush an insect from his face.

“Where is your ring?” she said, in a tone of suppressed anxiety.

“Gone, Euphra.  My father’s ring!  It was lying beside Lady Euphrasia’s.”

Euphra’s face was again hidden in her hands.  She sobbed and moaned like one in despair.  When she grew a little calmer, she said: 

“I am sure I did not take your ring, dear Hugh —­ I am not a thief.  I had a kind of right to the other, and he said it ought to have been his, for his real name was Count von Halkar —­ the same name as Lady Euphrasia’s before she was married.  He took it, I am sure.”