"Well, Sally, you must help me to disrobe, and then you may go."
The waiting maid did her duty and retired.
And Claudia, wrapped in her soft dressing gown and seated in her easy-chair before the fire, gave herself up to thought.
She was thinking of her meeting with Katie on the stairs. Since it was no new rumor connected with the murder, she was wondering what could be the nature of the communication Katie had to make to her. She recalled the anxious, frightened, indignant countenance of the old woman, and in her memory that expression seemed to have a more significant meaning than it had had to her careless eyes at the time of seeing it.
What could it be that Katie had to tell her? Of course Claudia did not know; she soon gave up trying to conjecture; but felt impatient for the morning, when the mystery should be revealed.
Other anxious thoughts also troubled her; thoughts of the dangers to which she was exposed from the hatred of Lord Vincent, the jealousy of Mrs. Dugald, and the depravity of both; thoughts of her father's long and strange silence; thoughts of the insult she had received that evening in being commanded to chaperon Mrs. Dugald to the theater; thoughts of the mysterious sounds she had heard from Mrs. Dugald's room, and which she was so far from connecting with any idea of Katie that she attributed them solely to a quarrel between her two precious companions; and lastly the ever-recurring thoughts of that mysterious discovery which old Katie had made, and which she was so eager to impart to her lady. Ever Claudia's thoughts, traveling in a circle, came back to this point.
Wearied with fruitless speculation she still sat on, watching the decaying fire and listening to the thunder of the sea as it broke upon the rocks at the base of the castle. At length she got up, drew aside the heavy window curtains, opened the strong oaken shutters and looked out upon the expanse of the gray and dreary sea, dimly visible under the cloudy midnight sky.
At last she closed the window and went to bed. But she could not sleep. She lay wakeful, restless, anxious, through the long hours of the middle night, and through the gray dawn of morning and the early flush of day. A little before her usual hour of rising she rang the bell.
Sally answered it.
"Is Katie up?" she inquired.