"Very well, mother…. Is anybody going to sit up with Valerie?"
"Stephanie insists on sleeping on the couch at the foot of her bed. I offered to sit up but she wouldn't let me…. You'll see that I'm called if anything happens, won't you?"
"Yes. Good-night, mother."
He kissed her, stood a moment looking at the closed door behind which lay Valerie—tried to realise that she did lie there under the same roof-tree that sheltered father, mother, and sister—then, with a strange thrill in his heart, he went downstairs.
Cameron passed him, on his upward way to slumberland.
"How's Miss West?" he asked cheerfully.
"Asleep, I think. Billy Ogilvy expects her to be all right in the morning."
"Good work! Glad of it. Tell your governor; he's been inquiring."
"Has he?" said Neville, with another thrill, and went into the living room where his father sat alone before the whitening ashes of the fire.
"Well, father!" he said, smiling.