"Too late! Too late!"
He again dozed off while she watched him. For several minutes they sat in this manner until she stole out of the room and left him alone. Soon he was wrapped in the arms of a gentle slumber. Some time later she aroused him.
CHAPTER X
I
A fortnight later there came to the Allison home a messenger from Stephen in the person of Sergeant Griffin. He appeared at the doorway just as the shroud of eventide was being enfolded about the landscape, changing its hues of green and gray to the more somber ones of blue or purple; just at the time when the indoor view of things is about to be made apparent only by the artificial beams of the tallow and dip.
"Hail!" he said; "I have business with Matthew Allison."
"From Stephen?" Marjorie asked with evident interest.
He shook his head.