Tick, tack, tick, tack! the old clock filled the night air with its measured beat. "Surely it does not tick so loudly in the day?" she thought.
Ten, eleven, and twelve had struck, and still Morva lay wakeful, with wide-open eyes, watching the hurrying clouds. At last she slept for an hour or two, and her uninterrupted breathing showed that the invigorating sleep of youth had at length fallen upon her weary eyelids. For an hour or two she slept, but at last she suddenly stirred, and in a moment was wide awake, with every sense strained to the utmost.
What had awakened her she could not tell. She was conscious only of an eager and thrilling expectancy.
She was about to relapse into slumber when a gliding sound caught her ear, and in a moment she was listening again, with all her senses alert. Was it fancy? or was there a soft footfall, and a sound as of a hand drawn over the whitewashed wall of the passage? A board creaked, and Morva sat up, and strained her ears to listen. After a stillness of some moments, again there was the soft footfall and the gliding hand on the wall. She rose and quietly crept into the passage just in time to see a dark figure entering the preacher's room.
Intense curiosity was the feeling uppermost in her mind, and this alone prevented her calling Ann. Standing a few moments in breathless silence, she heard the slow opening of a drawer; another pause of eager listening, while the stealthy footsteps seemed to be returning towards the doorway.
At this moment the moon emerged from behind a cloud, and in her light Morva saw a sight which astonished her, for coming from the preacher's room a well-known form stood plainly revealed. It was Gethin! and the girl shrank a little into the shadow of a doorway. But her precaution was needless, for he walked as if dazed or asleep, and with unsteady footstep seemed to stagger as he hurriedly gained his own room.
Morva, frightened and wondering, returned to bed, and if the early hours of the night had been disturbed and restless, those which followed were still more so.
What could it mean? What could Gethin want in Gwilym's room? She had thought it was a thief, and if not a thief what was the meaning of those stealthy footsteps and the opening of the drawer? and full of unrest she lay awake listening to the ticking of the clock, and to Tudor's continued howling. Should she wake Ann? No! for Gethin had evidently desired secrecy, and she would not be the one to frustrate his intentions, for whatever might be the object of his secret visit to the preacher's room, she never doubted but that it was right and honourable.