CHAPTER XXXV

All throughout the rest of that evening the schoolmaster had employment in guarding Pam's bedroom door. At times, drawing long breaths to suffocate his beating heart, he listened at its keyhole, applied his eye even, pressed his hot face flat against the woodwork, and strove to elicit some filterings, however attenuated, of its occupant and her concerns.

But the door was as uncommunicative as a gravestone. Had he not seen the girl go in, and heard her close the lock upon her entombment, he would have been sick with apprehension and doubt; ready to believe that she had eluded him, and that he had lost her. More than once, as it was, he tapped at the door, but no response came to him, and he was fearful to intensify the summons lest he might betray his presence to those downstairs, and bring about an enforced relinquishment of his watch.

Evening gave place to night, and the yellow harvest moon arose. Sounds of supper things stirring and searches after Pam drove him from the landing into his bedroom. Emma Morland, less timorous of knuckle than he, and less furtive of intention, came boldly up the staircase, calling Pam's name, and rapped—after finding the door locked—a peremptory summons upon its inmate.

"Come; what 'a ye gotten door fast for?" he heard her demand of the languid voice of response that had raised itself faintly at the summons, like a wounded bird. "Is n't it about time ye came doon an' gied a 'and wi' supper things? Ah 've yon blouse to finish by to-neet, think on."

Then the wounded voice stirred itself wearily again.

"What! another?" Emma Morland cried, with more of resentment in her tones than sympathy. "That meks second ye 've 'ad i' t' week. Ye nivver used to 'ave 'em. What 's comin' tiv ye?"

"Well! ah declare!" she exclaimed, after further parley of an apparently incomprehensible and unsatisfactory nature. "It 's a rum un when a lass like you starts tekkin' tiv 'er bed, 'at 's nivver knowed a day's illness in 'er life! There mun be seummut wrong wi' ye, ah think—a decline, or seummut o' t' sort. We s'll 'a to be fetchin' doctor tiv ye, gen ye get onny wuss. Will ye let me mek ye some bread-an'-milk? Some gruel, then? Some tawst an' tea? Ye weean't? Ye 're sure ... noo? Well, then; it 's no use. Ah 've done my best. Good-neet tiv ye, an' ah 'ope ye 'll be better i' t' morn. Don't trouble aboot gettin' up no sooner nor ye feel fit. 'Appen ye 'll sleep it off."

So she was safe in bed, then. Through the sorrow his love felt at the unhappiness in which it had involved the girl—for love it was—nothing short of love, and great love at that, could have moved this nervous, self-secluded man to such courageous acts of infamy—he drew relieved breath at the intelligence. Now he could relinquish the closeness of his vigil without fear.

He would have followed Emma Morland down the staircase with less ease of mind, perhaps, could he have seen the dressed figure of the girl, curled up on the quilt, with her face plunged in the pillows; and been able to follow the fevered hurryings of her thought. For the languid, wing-wounded voice he had heard was but a lie, like all the rest of her in these days. It was no headache she had—heartache, if you like—but no headache. What her seclusion sought was thought, not oblivion; action, not restfulness.