For a moment, it seemed to the King, as if the verandah, the house, the garden, and even the night sky, stood away from them, receded, and that he and Judith were alone, together, in infinite space.
The moment passed.
Judith stood up.
"Bed!" she said, speaking with the note of smiling, kindly discipline, with which she ruled the Imps, and, when she chose, even Uncle Bond and himself. "You will be able to sleep now, Alfred."
The King rose obediently to his feet to find, with a certain dull, dazed surprise, that he was stiff and sore, and hardly able to stand.
Dazed as he was, he did not fail to see the look of sharp anxiety which shone, for a moment, in Judith's eyes.
"Lean on me, old man!" she exclaimed. "You are done up. I'll see you to your room. They have been working you too hard. Do they never think of—the man—in your Service?"
She put out her arm, as she spoke, and slipped it skilfully round his shoulders.
And so, glad of Judith's support, and only restfully conscious of her nearness now, the King moved off slowly along the verandah towards the room, at the far end of the silent, darkened house, which had come to be regarded as his room, and, as such, was strictly reserved, "in perpetuity," for his use alone.
"Here you are!" Judith announced, at last, halting at the open window door of the room. "You will be able to manage by yourself now, won't you? You must sleep now, Alfred. Dreamless sleep! Every minute of it! The Imps will call you, as usual, in the morning. Good-night."