Betsey said good night to David, good night to Miss Miranda, tiptoed down the dimly lighted hall and closed the door of her own room.
“You must go to sleep early,” Miss Miranda had said. “I know you are tired after your hard three days.”
Weary she was, but not sleepy at all. She felt a restless uneasiness nor, try as she would, could she shake off the haunting depression caused by Michael’s fantastic notion. She sat by the window, watching big dark clouds creep upward from the horizon and blot out the stars, she wandered about the room, she tried to read, she tried to sleep, but all to no purpose. It was impossible to put out of her mind the seriousness of Mr. Reynolds’ illness, nor could she forget Michael’s solemn belief that ill luck lay heavy on the place and would not be driven away.
“It’s nonsense,” she told herself again and again. “Why did I ever listen to him?”
The pressure of excitement and distress became greater and greater instead of less, became almost unendurable. She sat down before Miss Miranda’s desk and lifted her hand to the key of the toy-cupboard How often she had read in fairy stories of how the heroine of the tale, when in complete despair, would break the magic nut, uncover the enchanted box for a charm to bring help in time of need. She felt as though it were much the same thing she was doing when she opened the doors of the toy cupboard.
One after another she took down the treasures and set them before her, the silver Saint Christopher, the little jade tree, the bowls and cups, the ornaments and carvings. She tried to recollect the stories she had heard but a few days ago, the gay adventures, the odd, absorbing tales. Yet she came wandering back to the two of which she had heard first, the silver saint and the little tree. They seemed to be more closely bound up with her daily life, with Michael’s superstition and with that steadfast purpose that dwelt in the Reynolds’ blood. From the two friends who built their clipper ship in the face of all opposition down to Miss Miranda and her father, all were willing to sacrifice so much and work so untiringly to put into reality the substance of a dream. She set the tree on the shelf again and in doing so brushed Saint Christopher to the ground. Poor Michael, what strange ideas had taken possession of his faithful old Irish soul!
“That pool that lies so deep and quiet and pictures back the stars. If it was running water, now!”
Why did his rambling, senseless talk keep running through her head? Little by little, however, calm and comfort seemed to come back to her and at last, so late did she sit before the toy cupboard that drowsiness came from mere force of habit and she got up and stumbled to her bed.
She slept soundly, but for a very little time, awakening with a start. The rising clouds had brought high winds with them, winds that were blustering about the corners of the little house and blowing sticks and broken boughs across the steep roof above her head. Starting up with all sleepiness vanished, she sat staring into the dark. There was a sound above the others that she did not quite recognize, a sound like a door banging or—no—it was the slamming of a gate. Again and again she heard it, an unlocked gate swinging in the wild night wind. There was none near enough for her to hear so plainly save the one in the high garden wall.
Then suddenly there came into her mind, not gradually as answers to puzzles often come, but all at once, full, clear and plain, the truth as to that mystery of the goblin light. Why had she been so dense before, why had she thought of it so late, when real harm might have already come? She fumbled for her clothes in the dark, stumbling here and there in too great haste even to find the lamp; she dressed pell-mell, flung open the door and ran down the stairs. She was quiet in the upper hall, but, in her hurry, had little thought of silence as she unbarred the outer door.