It was Bertha who sat in the rocking-chair, and as she turned her face quietly toward them Tredennis felt himself betrayed into a slight start. Neither her eyes nor her color were as bright as they had been downstairs. She had taken off her ornaments, and they lay in a small glittering heap upon the stand at her side. The child's head rested upon her breast, and her bare arm and hand held its body in an easy position with a light, close, accustomed touch. She spoke in a soft, lowered voice.
"Janey is nervous to-night," she answered. "She cannot go to sleep, and I am trying to quiet her. Will you excuse me if I do not come down? She really needs me."
CHAPTER VI.
When Tredennis found himself standing out in the street, half an hour later, it was this picture which remained in his mind, and no other. If an effort had been required to retain the impression upon his mental retina he would have made the effort with the deliberate intention of excluding all else; but no effort was needed.
"I suppose it is sentiment," he said, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and looking up at the starlit sky. "I have no doubt it is sentiment. A man who has lived mooning alone as long as I have, drifts in that direction naturally, I suppose. And I am a rigid, old-fashioned fellow. I don't fit in with the rest of it. But, with her child in her arms and her gewgaws laid on the table, I seemed to see something I knew. I'll think of that, and not of the other."
It was just at this moment that he caught sight of a figure approaching him from a distance of a few yards. It was the figure of a man, wrapped in a cloak, and walking with bent head at a leisurely pace, which argued that he was deep in meditation. As it drew nearer Tredennis recognized something familiar in its outlines, and before it had taken half-a-dozen steps forward the head was raised suddenly, almost as if attracted by something in his gaze, and he recognized the professor, who, seeing him, came toward him at once, and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder.
"You are coming away from the house, are you?" he said. "I might have known I should have the chance of meeting you when I came out to take my ramble before going to bed. I do it every night. I find I sleep better for it. Perhaps Bertha told you."