"Ay. Not a pleasant endowment is it? Stranger things are heard of some who possess it: they spirit themselves on to the roofs of houses, to the tops of chimneys, and contrive to spirit themselves down again, without coming to harm. So far as I am aware, I have never yet attempted those ambitious feats."
"Does Lady Chandos know of this?"
"Of course. My mother saw me last night, I find: she felt unable to sleep, she says, thinking of poor Mrs. Freeman, and rose from her bed. It was a light night, and she drew aside her curtains and looked from the window. But for her additional testimony, I might not have believed you yet, Miss Hereford."
"You seemed to be making for her apartments, sir—for the little door in the laurel walk."
"Did I?" he carelessly rejoined. "What freak guided my steps thither, I wonder? Did you see me come back again?"
"No, sir. I did not stay much longer at the window."
"I daresay I came back at once. A pity you missed the sight a second time," he continued, with a laugh that sounded very much like a forced one. "Having decorated myself with a cloak and broad hat, I must have been worth seeing. I really did not know that I had a cloak in my dressing-closet, but I find there is an old one."
He sat still, pulling to pieces a white rose and scattering its petals one by one. His eyes seemed to seek any object rather than mine; his dark hair, looking in some lights almost purple like his eyes, was impatiently pushed now and again from his brow. Altogether, there was something in Mr. Chandos that morning that jarred upon me—something that did not seem true.
"I cannot think, sir, how you could have gone down so quietly from your room. For the first time since I have been in your house—for the first time, I think, in my whole life—I sat up reading last night, and yet I did not hear you; unless, indeed, you descended by some egress through the east wing."
"Oh, you don't know how quiet and cunning sleepwalkers are; the stillness with which they carry on their migrations is incredible," was his rejoinder. "You must never be surprised at anything they do."