Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers.
"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr look, "nor has Hilton."
"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just—better, indeed, than any just that I ever heard of."
"What, didn't that man go into your room?"
"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound."
"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you could give me."
It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and scared by the thought of their defencelessness—six women alone in that wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and ambitions—to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as though it were a person. "Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, warte mal!" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing at the occupants of the room, still mumbling.
"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna.
"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know very well that I can't let you stay here alone."
Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation.