The handling of this rotten lock and its rickety accompaniments suddenly brought back a panic fear on Lucy. What if Alice Manisty and the wind, which was already rising, should burst in upon her together? She looked down upon her night-gown and her bare feet. Well, at least she would not be taken quite unawares! She opened her cupboard and brought from it a white wrapper of a thin woollen stuff which she put on. She thrust her feet into her slippers, and so stood a moment listening, her long hair dropping about her. Nothing! She lay down, and drew a shawl over her. 'I won't—won't—sleep,' she said to herself.
And the last sound she was conscious of was the cry of the little downy owl—so near that it seemed to be almost at her window.
* * * * *
'You are unhappy,' said a voice beside her.
Lucy started. The self in her seemed to wrestle its way upward from black and troubled depths of sleep. She opened her eyes. Someone was bending over her. She felt an ineffable horror, but not the smallest astonishment. Her dreams had prophesied; and she saw what she foreknew.
In the wavering light she perceived a stooping form, and again she noticed a whiteness of hands and face set in a black frame.
'Yes!' she said, lifting herself on her elbow. 'Yes!—what do you want?'
'You have been sobbing in your sleep,' said the voice. 'I know why you are unhappy. My brother is beginning to love you—you might love him. But there is some one between you—and there always will be. There is no hope for you—unless I show you the way out.'
'Miss Manisty!—you oughtn't to be here,' said Lucy, raising herself higher in bed and trying to speak with absolute self-command. 'Won't you go back to bed—won't you let me take you?'
And she made a movement. Instantly a hand was put out. It seized her arm first gently, then irresistibly.