Sir Hulbert was standing by the fire, which my lady had had lighted in the hall, as he spoke. He seemed almost thinking aloud. My lady crept up to him with a look on her face I could not bear to see.
'Hulbert,' she said in a low voice, 'I said things to him enough to make him doubt our caring at all.' And then she broke down into bitter though silent weeping.
We got her to bed with difficulty. There was really no use whatever in sitting up, and who knew what need for strength the next day might bring? Then there were the other poor children to think of. So by midnight the house was all quiet as usual. I was thankful that the wind had fallen, for all through the evening there had been sounds of wailing and sobbing, such as stormy weather always brings at Treluan, enough to make you miserable if there was nothing the matter—the rain pattering against the window like cold tiny hands, tapping and praying to be let in.
Sad as I was, and though I could scarcely have believed it of myself, I had scarcely laid my head down before I too, like the children, fell fast asleep. I was dreaming, a strange confused dream, which I never was able to remember clearly; but it was something about searching in the smugglers' caves for Master Francis, followed by an old man, who I somehow fancied was the miser baronet, Sir David. His hair was snow white, and there was a confusion in my mind of thinking it like Miss Lally's wool. Anyhow, I had got the idea of whiteness in my head, so that, when something woke me—afterwards I knew it was the sound of my own name—and I opened my eyes to see by the glimmer of the night-light what seemed at first a shining figure by my bed-side, I did not feel surprised. And the first words I said were 'white as wool.'
'No, no,' said Miss Lally, for it was she, in her little night-dress, her fair hair all tumbling over her shoulders, 'it isn't about my wool, nurse, please wake up quite. It's something so strange—such a queer noise. Please get up and come to my room to see what it is.'
Miss Lally's room was a tiny place at the side of the nursery nearest the tower, though not opening on to the tower stair.
I got up at once and crossed the day nursery with her, lighting a candle on the way. But when we got into her room all was perfectly silent.
'What was it you heard, my dear?' I asked.
'A sort of knocking,' she said, 'and a queer kind of little cry, like a rabbit caught in a trap when you hear it a long way off.'
'It must have been the wind and rain again,' I was beginning to say, but she stopped me.