‘I don’t know.... I seemed to see——’
‘What?’
‘I can’t tell you. I almost forget.’
‘You must tell me.’
‘It was a knight ... a young knight in armour.’
‘Out there on the grass?’
‘It was you.... Oh, I know there wasn’t really anything there,’ he added hastily—‘only the light of the moon on the ground.’
‘And all that you told me this afternoon—it, too, was nothing?’
‘Yes—yes, it was. Some day I will tell you all about it, from the very beginning, but not now. It would take too long.... You see I was so much by myself before I came here. I had no one. And—and—I could not help speaking to you this afternoon.... You don’t understand how—how much it is all a part of my life—how much it means to me——’ He broke off abruptly, and for a little Brocklehurst said nothing.
‘Tell me about what you used to do at home, if you don’t mind,’ he whispered presently. Then he lay still, listening to a rather broken and wandering story, which very soon he grew too sleepy to follow. ‘You had better go back to your own bed now,’ he murmured drowsily. ‘It wouldn’t do for you to drop off asleep here. Don’t make any noise: some other chap may be awake.’