'Yes, quite well.'
Then Lucy began to cry. She could not keep her tears back any longer, and Cousin Mary turned her out of the sick-room. Nurse Brannan found her sobbing in the window-seat, and ordered her to bed, where she soon cried herself to sleep.
With the unimpaired appetite of youth for sleep, Lucy slept through all the long June day. She slept until the sunset light again touched the roof of the college chapel.
It would be slipping off it presently, like it had slipped off the day before, when the Master was here to watch it.
Perhaps he was watching it now.
Lucy would not have awakened even then, if Nurse Brannan had not aroused her.
'Come,' she said, shaking her; 'get up at once. Mrs. Rae is asking for you. Come at once, or you will be too late!'
Lucy did not stay to dress. She hurried across the passage with her hair falling over her shoulders and her dressing-gown, which she did not stay to put on properly, trailing on the ground behind her. Her nerves were so over-strung that it seemed to her that its rustle on the floor sent a whisper after her the whole length of the passage. It was like the Master's voice.
The face on the pillow had changed since she had seen it last. It was sharper and grayer, and the breath came shorter and at longer intervals.
The shadows were already closing around her when Lucy came into the room. She no longer opened her eyes when the girl spoke to her—she would never open them again here—but her lips were moving.