"I am sure I don't know," was the husband's reply, rather ruefully given, as if conscious he had made a great mistake.
"You old goose," said his wife, with an emphatic kiss, as she composed herself to her innocent slumbers.
But before they were broken by nature, in the gray of the morning, Mrs. Clayton was roused by a tapping at the bedroom door; a tapping to which all Mr. Clayton's shouts to "come in," only served as a renewal.
"Who can it be, Harry?—do get up and see," said Bella.
So Harry got up, like a dutiful husband, and opened the door, and the figure of Colonel Damer, robed in a dressing-gown, and looking very shadowy and unreal in the dawning, presented itself on the threshold.
"Is your wife here?" demanded the Colonel briefly.
"Of course she is," said Mr. Clayton, wondering what the Colonel wanted with her.
"Will she come to Mrs. Damer? she is very ill," was the next sentence, delivered tremblingly.
"Very ill!" exclaimed Bella, jumping out of bed and wrapping herself in a dressing-gown. "How do you mean, Colonel Damer?—when did it happen?"
"God knows!" he said, in an agitated voice; "but for some time after she fell asleep she was feverish and excited, and spoke much. I woke suddenly in the night and missed her, and going in search of her with a light, found her fallen on the landing."