Standing thus, with all other sensations yielding to bewilderment, Dick was recalled to himself by hearing voices and footsteps below his window. Fanny and Maurice had returned; he must go down and let them in, and then—the cuttings!
"Why, how long have you been in?" was Fanny's first question; she had too much tact to ask him why he had left.
"Oh, a long time," Dick replied. "I didn't feel quite all right," he added, a shade nearer the truth; "but—but I thought it would only bother you."
"How could you think that? If you had only told me," said Fanny, with honest trouble in her voice, "you shouldn't have come alone."
"Then I'm glad I gave you the slip." Dick manufactured a laugh. "But, indeed, I'm all right now—right as the mail, honour bright!"
"But why didn't you go to bed when you got home?" his sister pursued.
"The key!" explained Maurice laconically, turning out the hall gas as he spoke.
They stole up-stairs in the pale chill light that fell in bars through the blind of the landing window.
Fanny laid her hand softly on Dick's shoulder.
"It was wretched after you went," she whispered sympathetically. "Do you know that—that—" timorously—"Alice went up-stairs and never came down again?"