I WENT to bed early that night, and, partially undressing myself, I put on a wrapper and sat on my bed reading till Mary should come to tell me that Robbie had fallen asleep, and that it was time for our night-watch to begin. I had not spoken to Mary again on the subject, for soon after my investigations in the kitchen, Mrs. Brane had asked me to help her in her work of going over the old, long-closed drawers and wardrobes in the north wing, and I had had a very busy and tiring afternoon. It was a relief, however, to find that Sara dropped her labors when I appeared. Mrs. Brane looked almost as relieved as I felt.

“That is the most indefatigable worker I ever met, Miss Gale,” she said in her listless, nervous way; “she's been glued to my side ever since we began this interminable piece of work.”

“I wish you'd give it up, dear Mrs. Brane,” I said, “and let the indefatigable Sara tire out her own energy. I'm sure that you have none to spare, and this going over of old letters, and papers, and books and clothes is very tiring and depressing work for you.”

She gave a tormented sigh. “Oh, isn't it? It's aging me.” She stood before a great, old highboy, its drawers pulled out, and she looked so tiny and helpless, as small almost as Robbie. All the rest of the furniture was as massive as the highboy, the four-poster and the marble-topped bureau, and the tall mirror with its tarnished frame. I liked the mirror, and rather admired its reflection of myself.

Mrs. Brane looked wistfully about the room, and her eyes, like mine, stopped at the mirror. “How young you look beside me,” she said, “and so bright, with that wonderful hair! I wish you'd let me know you better, dear; I am really very fond of you, you know, and you must have something of a history with your beauty and your 'grand air,' and that halo of tragedy Mr. Dabney talks about.” She smiled teasingly, but I was too sad to smile back.

“My history is not romantic,” I said bitterly; “it is dull and sordid. You are very good to me, dear Mrs. Brane.” I was close to tears. “I wish I could do more for you.”

“More! Why, child, if it wasn't for you, I'd run away from 'The Pines' and never come back. No inducement, no consideration of any kind would keep me in this place.”

She certainly spoke as though she had in mind some very weighty inducement and consideration.

“Why do you stay, Mrs. Brane.” I asked impulsively. “At least, why don't you go away for a change? It would do you so much good, and it would be wonderful for Robbie. Why, Mrs. Brane, you have n't left this place for a day, have you, since your husband died?”

“No, dear,” said the little lady sorrowfully, “hardly for an hour. It's my prison.” She looked about the room again, and added as though she were talking to herself, “I don't dare to leave it.”

“Dare?” I repeated.

She smiled deprecatingly. “That was a silly word to use, was n't it?” Again that tormented little sigh. “You see, I'm a silly little person. I'm not fit to carry the weight of other people's secrets.”

Again I repeated like some brainless parrot, “Secrets?”

“Of course there are secrets, child,” she said impatiently. “Every one has secrets, their own or other people's. You have secrets, without doubt?”

I had. She had successfully silenced me. After that we worked steadily, and there was no further attempt at confidence.

Nevertheless, as I lay on my bed trying to read and waiting for Mary's summons, I decided that I would make a strong effort to get Mrs. Brane and Robbie out of the house. I had come to the conclusion that my employer was the victim of a mild sort of mania, one symptom of which was a fear of leaving her home. I thought I would consult with Dr. Haverstock and get him to order Robbie and Robbie's mother a change of air. It might cure the little fellow of his nervous terrors. How I wish I had thought of this plan a few days sooner! What dreadful reason I have for regretting my delay!

Mary was a long time in coming. I must have fallen asleep, for a while later, I became aware that I had slipped down on my pillows and that my book had fallen to the floor. I got up, feeling rather startled, and looked at my clock. It was already half-past twelve, and Mary had not called me. I went to my door and found that it was locked. I remembered that it had been my alternate plan for Mary to lock me in, and I supposed that she had forgotten that our final decision was in favor of the other scheme, or she had preferred to watch over Robbie alone. I was a little hurt, but I acquiesced in my imprisonment and went back to bed. I put out the light, and was very soon asleep again.

I was waked by a dreadful sound of screaming. I sat up in bed, stiff with fear, my heart leaping. Then I ran towards the door, remembered that it was locked, and stood in the middle of the room, pressing my hands together.

The screaming stopped. Robbie had had his nightmare, and it was over. Thank God! this time my alibi was established without doubt. I was enormously relieved, for I had begun myself to fear that I had been walking in my sleep, and, perhaps, influenced by the description of Robbie's favorite nightmare, had unconsciously acted out the horror beside his bed. After a while, the house being fairly quiet, though I thought I would hear Mary moving about, I went back to my bed. When she could leave her charge I knew that she would come to me with her story. I tried to be calm and patient, but of course I was anything but that.

It was nearly morning, a faint, greenish light spread in the sky, opening fanlike fingers through the slats of my shutter. After a while, it seemed interminable, a step came down the hall. It was not Mary's padded, nurselike tread, it was the quick, resolute footstep of a man. It stopped outside my door. There was no ceremony of knocking, no key turned. The handle was sharply moved, and, to my utter amazement, the door opened.

There stood Paul Dabney, fully dressed, his face pale and grim.

“Come out,” he said. “Come with me and see what has been done.” I noticed that he kept one hand in his pocket, and that the pocket bulged.

I got up, still in my wrapper, my hair hanging in two long, dishevelled braids, and came, in a dazed way, towards him. He took me by the wrist, using his left hand, the other still in his pocket. His fingers were as cold and hard as steel. I shrunk a little from them, and he gave my wrist a queer, cruel little shake.

“What does it feel like, eh?” he snarled.

I merely looked at him. His unexpected appearance, his terrible manner, the opening of that locked door without the use of any key, above all, a dull sense of some overwhelming tragedy for which I was to be held responsible,—all these things held me dumb and powerless. I let him keep his grasp on my wrist, and I walked beside him along the passage-way as though I were indeed a somnambulist. So we came to the nursery door. Inside, I saw Mary kneeling beside Robbie's little bed, and heard her sobbing as though her heart would break.

“What is it?” I whispered, looking at Paul Dabney and pulling back.

My look must have made some impression on him. A queer sort of gleam of doubt seemed to pass across his face. He drew me towards the cot, keeping his eyes riveted upon me.

There lay the little boy who had never allowed me to come so near to him before, passive and still—a white little face, a body like a broken flower. I saw at once that he was dead.

“Oh, miss,” sobbed Mary, keeping her face hidden, “why didn't you keep to your plan? Oh, God have mercy on us, we have killed the poor soul!”

“Mary,” I whispered, “you locked me in.”

“Oh, indeed, Miss Gale, no. I thought you said you'd come and spend the night with me. I had a couch made up. I waited for you, and I must have fallen asleep...” Here she got to her feet, drying her eyes. We were both talking in whispers, Dabney still held my wrist, the little corpse lay silent there before us as though he were asleep. “I was waked by Robbie. Oh, my lamb! My lamb!” Again she wept and tears poured down my own face.

“I heard him,” I choked. “I would have come. But the door was locked.”

Here Mr. Dabney's fingers tightened perceptibly, almost painfully upon my wrist.

“I opened your locked door,” he sneered. “Remember that.”

Mary looked at me with bewildered eyes. “I did n't lock your door, miss.”

We stared at each other in dumb and tragic mystification.

“I came to Robbie as fast as I could,” she went on. “I was too late to see any one go out. He was in convulsions, the pitiful baby! In my arms, he died before ever I could call for help. Mr. Dabney come in almost at once and and—Oh, miss, who's to tell his mother?”

I made a move. “I must—” I began, but that cold, steel grip on my wrist coerced me.

“You go, Mary,” said Dabney, “and break it to her carefully. Send for Dr. Haverstock. This—sleep-walker will stay here with me,” he added between his teeth.

Mary, with a little moan, obeyed and went out and slowly away. Paul Dabney and I stood in silence, linked together strangely in that room of death. This was the man I loved. I looked at him.

“You look as innocent as a flower,” he said painfully. “Perhaps this will move you.”

He drew me close to Robbie. He lifted one of the little hands and laid it, still warm, in mine. The small fingers were clenched into a fist, and about two of them was wrapped a strand of red-gold hair.

I fell down at Paul Dabney's feet.

The consciousness of his grip on my wrist, which kept me from measuring my length on the floor, stayed with me through a strange, short journey into forgetfulness.

“Ah!” said Paul Dabney, as I came back and raised my head; “I thought that would cut the ground from under you.”

He quietly untwisted the hairs from the child's clutch, and, still keeping his hold of me, he put the lock into his pocket-book and replaced it in an inner pocket.

“Stand up!” he said.

I obeyed. The blood was beginning to return to my brain, and with it an intolerable sense of outrage. I returned him look for look.

“If I am unfortunate enough to walk in my sleep,” I said quiveringly, “and if, through this misfortune, I have been so terribly unhappy as to cause the death of this poor delicate child, is that any reason, Paul Dabney, that you should hold me by the wrist and threaten me and treat me like a murderess?”

I was standing at my full height, and my eyes were fixed on his. To my inexpressible relief, the expression of his face changed. His eyes faltered from their implacable judgment, his lips relaxed, his fingers slowly slipped from my wrist. I caught his arm in both my hands.

“Paul! Paul!” I gasped. Not for long afterwards did I realize that I had used his name. “How can you, how can you put me through such agony? As though this were not enough! O God! God!”

I broke down utterly. I shook and wept. He held me in his arms. I could feel him tremble.

“Go back to your room,” he said at last, in a low, guilty sort of voice. “Try to command yourself.”

I faltered away, trying pitifully as a punished child, to be obedient, to be good, to merit trust. He looked after me with such a face of doubt and despair that, had it not been for Robbie's small, wax-like countenance, I must have been haunted by the look.

I got somehow to my room and lay down on my bed. I was broken in body, mind, and spirit. For the time being there was no strength or courage left in me. But they came back.