“And you are right to remember it, dear child. Now go and sleep in the same room with Pen, and watch her. I will take care of Pauline.”
Pauline was given her sleeping draught, and Miss Tredgold, placing herself in an easy-chair, tried to think over the events of the day. Soon her thoughts wandered from the day itself to the days that had gone before, and she puzzled much over Pauline’s character and her curious, half-repellent, half-affectionate attitude towards herself.
“What can be the matter with the child?” she thought. “She doesn’t really care for me as the others do, and yet sometimes she gives me a look that none of the others have ever yet given me, just as if she loved me with such a passionate love that it would make up for everything I have ever missed in my life. Now, Verena is affectionate and sweet, and open as the day. As to Pen, she is an oddity—no more and no less. I wish I could think her quite straightforward and honorable; but it must be my mission to train her in those important attributes. Pauline is the one who really puzzles me.”
By-and-by Pauline opened her eyes. She thought herself alone. She stretched out her arms and said in a voice of excitement:
“Nancy, you had no right to do it. You had no right to send it away to London. It was like stealing it. I want it back. Nancy, I must have it back.”
Miss Tredgold went and bent over her. Pauline was evidently speaking in her sleep. Miss Tredgold returned again to her place by the window. The dawn was breaking. There was a streak of light across the distant horizon. The tide was coming in fast. Miss Tredgold, as she watched the waves, found herself shuddering. But for the merest chance Pauline and Pen might have been now lying within their cold embrace. Miss Tredgold shuddered again. She stood up, and was just about to draw the curtain to prevent the little sleeper from being disturbed by the light, when Pauline opened her eyes wide, looked gravely at her aunt, and said:
“Is that you, Nancy? How strange and thin and old you have got! And have you brought it back at last? She wants it; she misses it, and Pen keeps on looking and looking for it. It is so lovely and uncommon, you see. It is gold and dark-blue and light-blue. It is most beautiful. Have you got it for me, Nancy?”
“It is I, dear, not Nancy,” said Miss Tredgold, coming forward. “You have had a very good night. I hope you are better.”
Pauline looked up at her.
“How funny!” she said. “I really thought you were Nancy—Nancy King, my old friend. I suppose I was dreaming.”