"I wish you hadn't to go," said Granny Barnes, wistfully. "I wish you could stay here the night."
Lucy looked at her anxiously. "Are you feeling very nervous, mother? Would you rather I stayed? I will if you wish."
"No,—oh, no," granny protested, though she would have liked it above all things. "I wasn't thinking about myself; I was thinking about you, up there all alone."
"Oh, I shall be all right. I am getting used to it. Now you go to bed early, and try to go to sleep, then you won't notice the weather. You are looking dreadfully tired. Good night—good night, Mona."
"I think I'll do as Lucy said," said granny a little while later. "I'm feeling tireder than ever in my life before. If I was in bed now this minute, I believe I could sleep. If I once got off I feel as if I could sleep for ever." And by half-past eight the house was shut up, and they had gone to bed.
Granny, at least, had gone to bed, and had fallen almost at once into a heavy slumber. Mona was more wakeful. The news of her teacher's engagement had excited her, and not having been able to talk it out, her brain was seething with ideas.
She put out her candle, drew back her curtains, and looked out into the gathering darkness. An air of gloom and loneliness reigned over everything. Far out she could see white caps on the waves, but not a boat, or vessel of any kind. The sky looked full and lowering.
With a little shiver Mona drew her curtains again and relighted her candle. As it flickered and burnt up, her eyes fell on the book so reluctantly put aside until to-morrow.
"Oh, I wish I could have just a little read," she thought, longingly. "Just a look to see what happens next."
She took up the book and opened it, glancing over the chapters she had read—then she turned to the one she and granny were going to read to-morrow. Her eyes travelled greedily over a few paragraphs, then she turned the page. Presently she grew tired of standing, and sat on the side of the bed, lost to everything but the pages she was devouring hungrily. The wind blew her curtains about, the rain drove against the panes, but Mona did not heed either. She had drawn herself up on the bed by that time and, leaning up against her pillows, was reading comfortably by the light of the candle close beside her. She was miles away from her real surroundings, and driving with Fleda in England, and no other world existed for her.