Ethra de Moidrey went into the house to keep her promise to Gray, and found him tired but none the worse for his participation at dinner.
Philippa and Warner had come in to visit him; the Countess found the book from which she had been reading to him since his arrival. He turned on his pillow and looked at her, and she seated herself beside the bed and opened the book on her knees.
"Do you remember where we left off?" she asked, smiling.
"I think it was where he was beginning to fall in love with her."
The Countess de Moidrey bent over the book. There was a slight color in her cheeks.
"I had not noticed that he was falling in love," she observed, turning the pages to find her place.
Philippa said to Warner:
"Could we walk down and see the searchlights? They are so wonderful on the water."
"Probably the sentinels won't permit us outside our own gates," he replied. "I know one thing; if you and I were not considered as part of the family of the Château, the military police would make us clear out. It's lucky I left the inn to come up here."
The Countess had begun reading in a low, soft voice, bending over her book beside the little lamp at the bedside, where Gray lay watching her under a hand that shaded his pallid face.