She opened the door of her dressing-room softly, so as not to disturb her husband should he have fallen asleep. A great fire burnt bravely in her little sitting-room beyond, and something in the unusual silence of it all enhanced its comfort in her eyes. If Josephine had been awaiting her as usual, she could not have put off the task of undressing in favour of sheer idleness by the fire. Her husband was right; something in that rhythmical surge of the sea made one not exactly restless, but on the alert; disinclined for action, yet prepared for it. A foolish idea, since what could be going to happen to the small household already, for the most part, asleep? The professor would have taken the first opportunity of recommencing that snooze legitimately in his bed, and even Eustace,--why would her thoughts run on Eustace? Irritated at her own self-consciousness, she took up a book impatiently. It interested her, and, by and by, she turned for the second volume, to find that it must have been left in the travelling bag which Kirsty's ignorance had put in the bedroom. Shading the light carefully, she passed through the dressing-room, and so into the room beyond, giving a tentative glance at the bed as she entered, lest she should disturb the sleeper. It was empty. Her hand fell from the light; she looked round the room in surprise, and the next moment was on her knees beside a figure on the floor,--a figure which even in her first alarm brought back a horrible memory.
"Edward! what is the matter? Are you ill?"
Once, as a slip of a girl out blackberrying, she had come upon a tipsy tramp in a ditch; a beast of a man who had met her innocent benevolence by stumbling to his feet, pursuing her as far as his feet would carry him. This was her solitary personal experience of drunkenness, and something in her husband's look and attitude revived the dread which had remained with her ever since. Yet he might be ill--very, very ill--
This time he raised an unsteady arm against the candle she held to his face, and she shrank back, shaking all over. Her first impulse was that of civilization,--to ring for help, at least for company. But what good would that do in an empty house? Josephine, until other women came to share her fears, had elected to sleep in a great chamber on the upper storey. Besides, what good would she be? Kirsty slept outside with the other farm servants. Eustace! no, no! not Eustace,--not now at any rate,--not till she was certain. There was the cook, of course; people in that rank of life were accustomed--oh, no! no! it was not possible. What a wretch she was to harbour such suspicions, when he might be ill--perhaps dying. With this protest in her mind, her rich draperies caught over her arm, the candle flaring, guttering, almost out in the swift search, she made her way to the unknown regions beyond the swing door, which separated work from leisure. Here? No! that must be the pantry. There? No! that was the gun-room. So, peering in at each room, she went along the stone passages till suddenly a door right in front of her opened, and Eustace Gordon came out, with a candle in his hand. He had been sitting up over the smoking-room fire, impelled, as she had been, to wakefulness by something, he knew not what.