The passage was silent, the only sounds being the heavy breathing somewhere of a weary boy, and the occasional creaking of a board as he crept along on tip-toe.
At the end of the passage he turned aside a few steps to a door, and stood listening. Some one was moving inside. There was the rustle of a dress and the tinkle of a spoon in a cup. Then he heard a voice, and oh, how his heart beat as he listened!
“I’m tired,” it said wearily.
That was all. Jeffreys heard the smoothing of a pillow and a woman’s soothing whisper hushing the sufferer to rest.
The drops stood in beads on his brow as he stood there and listened.
In a little all became quiet, and presently a soft, regular breathing told him that some one was sleeping.
He put his hand cautiously to the handle and held it there a minute before he dared turn it. At last he did so, and opened the door a few inches. The breathing went regularly on. Inch by inch he pushed the door back till he could catch a glimpse in the moonlight of the bed, and a dark head of hair on the pillow. An inch or two more, and he could see the whole room and the nurse dozing in the corner. Stealthily, like a thief, he advanced into the room and approached the bed. The sufferer was lying motionless, and still breathing regularly.
Jeffreys took a step forward to look at his face. At that moment the moonlight streamed in at the window and lit up the room. Then, to his terror, he noticed that the patient was awake, and lying with eyes wide open gazing at the ceiling. Suddenly, and before Jeffreys could withdraw, the eyes turned and met his. For an instant they rested there vacantly, then a gasp and a shriek of horror proclaimed that Forrester had recognised him.
In a moment he was outside the door, and had closed it before the nurse started up from her slumber.
He had not been in his study a minute when he heard a sound of footsteps and whispered voices without. The boy’s cry had reached the wakeful ears of Mr Frampton, and already he was on his way to the sick-chamber.