It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night. There was something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me. Everything seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent. There was not a sound in the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much to say the night before. I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for sleep, now on this side, now on that. At last I gave up trying, half in the hope that it might steal upon me unawares. I thought of the play and the ball, of poor Charles and his debts—of anything and everything—but it was no good. In the midst of a jumble of disconnected ideas I suddenly found myself listening again to the silence—listening as if it had been broken by a sound which I had not heard. My watch ticked loud and louder on the dressing-table, and presently I gave quite a start as the distant stable clock tolled out the hour: One, two, three, four. I had gone to bed before three. Had I been awake only an hour? It seemed incredible. Getting up on tiptoe, vaguely afraid myself of breaking the silence, I noiselessly pushed aside the heavy curtains and looked out.

The moon had set, but by the frosty starlight the outline of the great snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind stirring. I was on the point of getting back into bed, when I thought in the distance I heard a sound. I listened intently. No! I must have been mistaken. Ah! again, and nearer! I held my breath. I could distinctly hear a stealthy step coming up the stairs. My room was the nearest to the staircase end of the corridor, and any one coming up the stairs must pass my door. With a presence of mind which, I am glad to say, rarely deserts me, I blew out my candle, slipped to the door, and noiselessly opened it a chink.

Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat, candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment, and I saw Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and then all was still again, stiller than ever.

What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by an early train.

I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on. Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the dÉbris left by earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence beside Mrs. Marston.

It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn, and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.

"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."

"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."

He certainly looked it.

"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.

He laughed a little—a grim laugh—and shook his head. "But I had yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a change of air again soon, I am afraid."

I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house, and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay over Sunday, to-day being Friday.

"So have I," said Carr; "but I am sure I had better have refused. A stranger in a sick-house is a positive nuisance. I think I shall go to town by an afternoon train, if there is one."

"Upon my word I think we had better do the same," said Mrs. Marston. "What do you say, Arthur?" and she turned to her husband.

"I must go to-day, anyhow—on business," said General Marston.

"I hope no one is talking of leaving," said Charles, who had returned suddenly, rather out of breath.

As he spoke his eyes were fixed on Carr.

"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing," said Mrs. Marston. "Nothing is so tiresome as having visitors on one's hands when there is illness in the house. Mr. Carr was thinking of going up to London by the afternoon train; and I have a very good mind to go away with Arthur, instead of staying on, and letting him come back here for me to-morrow, as we had intended."

"Pray do not think of such a thing!" said Charles, really with unnecessary earnestness. "Mrs. Marston, pray do not alter your plans. Carr!" in a much sterner tone, "I must beg that you will not think of leaving us to-day. Your friend Colonel Middleton is staying on, and we cannot allow you to desert us so suddenly."

It was more like a command than an invitation; but Carr, usually so quick to take a slight, did not seem to notice it, and merely said that he should be happy to go or stay, whichever was most in accordance with the wishes of others, and took up the newspaper. He and Charles did not seem to get on well. I could see that Charles had not seemed to take to him from the very first; and Carr certainly did not appear at ease in the house. Perhaps Charles felt that he had rather failed in courtesy to him, for during the remainder of the morning he hardly let him out of his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched his cue into the rack at once, and came to the hall-fire where I was sitting, and where Aurelia presently joined us, fresh and smiling, in the prettiest of morning-gowns. Every one met in the hall. It was in the centre of the house, and every one coming up or down had to pass through it. Just now it was not so tempting an abode as usual, for the flowers and part of the stage had already been removed, and the bare boards, with their wooden supports, gave an air of discomfort to the whole place.

Aurelia opened wide eyes of horror at hearing Sir George was ill. She even got out a tiny laced pocket-handkerchief; but before she had had time to weep much into it, and spoil her pretty eyes, the doctor reappeared, accompanied by Charles and Ralph, and we all learned to our great relief that Sir George, though undoubtedly ill, was not dangerously so at present, though the greatest care would be necessary. Lady Mary had undertaken the nursing of her brother-in-law, and in her the doctor expressed the same confidence which parents are wont to feel in a stern school-master. In the mean time the patient was to be kept very quiet, and on no account to be disturbed.

When the doctor had left, Ralph and Aurelia, who had actually seen nothing of each other that morning, sauntered away together towards the library. Charles challenged Carr to finish his game of billiards, and Marston and I retired up-stairs to the smoking-room, where we could talk over our Indian experiences, and perhaps doze undisturbed. We might have been so occupied for half an hour or more when a flying step came up the stairs, the door was thrown open, and Ralph rushed into the room.

"General Marston! Colonel Middleton!" he gasped out, breathing hard, "will you, both of you, come to my father's room at once? He has sent for you."

"Good gracious! Is he worse?" I exclaimed.

"No. Hush! Don't ask anything, but just come,"—and he turned and led the way to Sir George Danvers's room.

We followed in wondering silence, and, after passing along numerous passages, were ushered into a large oak-panelled room with a great carved bed in it, in the middle of which, bolt-upright, sat Sir George Danvers, pale as ivory, his light steel eyes (so like Charles's) seeming to be the only living thing about him.

As we came in he looked at each of us in turn.

"Where is Charles?" he said, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

"Dear me! Sir George," I said, sympathetically, "how you have lost your voice!"

He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Ralph again.

"Where is Charles?" he asked a second time, in the same tone.

"Here!" said a quiet voice. And Charles came in, and shut the door.