The night was weird in its silence; she had no watch or clock to beguile her with its ticking, or to let her know how the slow hours were passing.
To-night she did not go upstairs to her loft, because she could not leave the dog. So, keeping the fire burning for the sake of companionship, she wrapped herself in the coat she had been mending, and lay down on the settle to rest.
But she had kept vigil on the previous night, from a fanciful dread lest harm should befall the stranger guest beneath their roof. She knew her grandfather’s disposition well, and that the old man would be quite capable of turning the stranger out in the night if the idea came into his head, so she had kept awake, in order to frustrate any design of the kind.
On this second night she also decided to keep watch, to see that Pip wanted for nothing. But healthy girls of seventeen cannot keep awake always.
Very soon the Lone House grew more silent still, the fire sank to a bed of red coals, which turned by slow degrees to white ashes. The laboured respiration of the dog grew intermittent and feeble, finally ceasing entirely. But Nell slumbered on in blissful unconsciousness until the morning sun threw broad beams of light across the uncleared supper-table, the spent fire, and the dead dog; then, with a little cry, she started into wakefulness.
CHAPTER IV
What the New Day brought
NELL sobbed and cried in a childish abandonment of grief when she found that Pip had died whilst she slept. But as no tears could restore the animal to life, the womanliness in her presently re-asserted itself, and she set to work to make the house clean and tidy, pending her grandfather’s return. After that she would dig a deep grave for poor faithful old Pip, in which she would lay the creature in readiness for burial, when Doss Umpey returned.
The exercise did her good, and as the sun was shining more brightly than ever, her mood grew almost cheerful as the day went on.
While sweeping under the settle, her broom—a home-made affair, consisting of rushes bound together—brushed out from under the settle a little leather case, which she had certainly never seen before.