Left alone with Lady, his mare, Richard could not help brooding—­rather than pondering—­over what the old woman had said.  Not that for a moment he contemplated as a possibility the acceptance of the witch’s offer.  To come himself into any such close relations with her as that would imply, was in repulsiveness second only to the idea of subjecting Dorothy to her influences.  For something to occupy his hands, that his mind might be restless at will, he gave his mare a careful currying, then an extra feed of oats, and then a gallop; after which it was time to go to bed.

I doubt if anything but the consciousness of crime will keep healthy youth awake, and as such consciousness is generally far from it, youth seldom counts the watches of the night.  Richard soon fell fast asleep, and dreamed that his patron saint—­alas for his protestantism!—­appeared to him, handed him a lance headed with a single flashing diamond, and told him to go and therewith kill the dragon.  But just as he was asking the way to the dragon’s den, that he might perform his behest, the saint vanished, and feeling the lance melting away in his grasp, he gradually woke to find it gone.

After a long talk with his father in the study, he was left to his own resources for the remainder of the day; and as it passed and the night drew on, the offer of the witch kept growing upon his imagination, and his longing to see Dorothy became stronger and stronger, until at last it was almost too intense to be borne.  He had never before known such a possession, and was more than half inclined to attribute it to the arts of mother Rees.

His father was busy in his study below, writing letters—­an employment which now occupied much of his time; and Richard sat alone in a chamber in the upper part of one of the many gables of the house, which he had occupied longer than he could remember.  Its one small projecting lozenge-paned window looked towards Dorothy’s home.  Some years ago he had been able to see her window, from it through a gap in the trees, by favour of which, indeed, they had indulged in a system of communications by means of coloured flags—­so satisfactory that Dorothy not only pressed into the service all the old frocks she could find, but got into trouble by cutting up one almost new for the enlargement of the somewhat limited scope of their telegraphy.  In this window he now sat, sending his soul through the darkness, milky with the clouded light of half an old moon, towards the ancient sun-dial, where Time stood so still that sometimes Richard had known an hour there pass in a moment.