“Bessie, Bessie, darling, what is the matter?” she whispered, putting her arms round her cousin’s neck, and striving to detain her; but Bessie gently disengaged herself from the embrace, and saying, “we shall waken Lally; there is nothing the matter with me,” left the room—her face buried in her handkerchief, sobbing, sobbing as she went. Lucy would have followed her, but Bessie motioned her not to do so. Then, gliding noiselessly along the passage, she entered her own room, and Agnes heard the key turned in the lock.
Some hours afterwards, when Heather, as was her custom, came to relieve the watcher, Lucy expressed her fear that Bessie could not be well. “She cried so bitterly,” the girl explained.
Hearing this, Mrs. Dudley went to Bessie’s door, and quietly turned the handle.
Contrary to her expectations, the bolt was not drawn inside, and she stepped into the apartment.
In the darkness she stood, holding her breath and listening. Bessie was asleep. Heather heard the regular respiration of what she considered sound slumber, and felt satisfied.
“I do not imagine she can be ill,” Mrs. Dudley remarked, on her return to Lucy. “She is sleeping quietly enough now, at all events. Tell me, dear,” she added, “have you heard any noise at all during the night? I fancied I caught a sound something like footsteps crunching on the gravel, and got up to see. Arthur said it was all my fancy. Did you hear anything?”
“No,” Lucy replied, “nothing whatever. Bessie was downstairs again, you know, leaving out that letter for Alick to take to town; but she was very quiet. I do not think you could have heard her.”
“It was my fancy, I suppose,” remarked Heather. “I have felt restless and nervous all the night long. I was quite glad when four o’clock struck to get up. Now, go to bed, Lucy, or you will feel ill for want of sleep.”
“No likelihood of that,” Lucy answered, suppressing a yawn, however, as she spoke, and went off, leaving mother and child alone.
Sitting there quite alone with her little girl, the restlessness of which Heather had complained returned upon her with double force. She tried to read; she fetched her work-basket, and commenced sewing; she went and stood by the window looking out into the darkness, and longed for five o’clock, when there would come some sounds of life about the house. It was a still, cold morning, pitch dark. Not a dog barked—not a leaf stirred. The silence was almost insupportable, and Heather felt it to be so, as she left the window and returned to Lally’s side.