Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat, candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment, and I saw Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and then all was still again, stiller than ever.
What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by an early train.
I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on. Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the débris left by earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence beside Mrs. Marston.
It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn, and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.
"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."
"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."
He certainly looked it.
"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.
He laughed a little—a grim laugh—and shook his head. "But I had yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a change of air again soon, I am afraid."
I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house, and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay over Sunday, to-day being Friday.