Felix—Felix Dysart. What will he think? What is he thinking now? To follow out this thought is intolerable to her; she rises abruptly.
"What o'clock is it, Mrs. Connolly?" says she in a hard, strained voice. "I am tired, I should like to go to bed now."
"Just eight, Miss. An' if you are tired there's nothing like the bed. Ye will like to say good-night to Mr. Beauclerk?"
"Oh, no, no!" with frowning sharpness. Then recovering herself. "I need not disturb him. You will tell him that I was chilled—tired."
"I'll tell him all that he ought to know," says Mrs. Connolly. "Come, Miss Joyce, everything, is ready for ye. An' a lie down and a good sleep will be the makin' of ye before morning."
Joyce, to her surprise, is led through a very well-appointed chamber, evidently unused, to a smaller but scarcely less carefully arranged apartment beyond. The first is so plainly a room not in daily use, that she turns involuntarily to her companion.
"Is this your room, Mrs. Connolly?"
"For the night, me dear," says that excellent woman mysteriously.
"You have changed your room to suit me. You mean something," says the girl, growing crimson, and feeling as if her heart were going to burst. "What is it?"
"No, no, Miss! No, indeed!" confusedly. "But, Miss Joyce, I'll say this, that 'tis eight year now since Misther Monkton came here, an' many's the good turn he's done me since he's been me lord's agint. An' that's nothing at all, Miss, to the gratitude I bear toward yer poor father, the ould head o' the house. An' d'ye think when occasion comes I wouldn't stand up an' do the best I could for one o' yer blood? Fegs, I'll take care that it won't be in the power of any one to say a word agin you."