Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the darkness, the church clock struck three.
“You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.”
Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost at once.
CHAPTER XXX.
Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In this condition he might have remained for another hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent rapping at the door.
“Come in,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken.
“Get up, get up!”
His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, bright-faced and earnest.