till night. You know, old
girl, it isn't fair--if we didn't care about one another----"

"Yes, I know--but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired,
headachy--this storm----"

He said nothing--She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyes
and the smile at his mouth turned away.

She moved towards the door--He said nothing, but his eyes followed her.

"Good night," she said, turning round to him--but he still said nothing,
only stood there very square and set.

For a long time he sat, looking into the fire--Then he went up to his
room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully
closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went
down the passage to Rachel's door.

The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of
some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end.

He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there.

"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened.
He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her
face very white, her eyes fixed on him.

"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said.

Her voice was a whisper--"No, Roddy--no--not--not----"

"Yes," he said firmly.

"No, not to-night."

"Yes--to-night--now."

He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and
hung it over a chair. He looked about the room.

"Too much light"--he said and, going to the door, switched off all the
lights save the one above the bed.

CHAPTER XII

LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--III

"Exile of immortality, strongly wise,
Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes,
To what may be beyond it. Sets your star,
O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night,
Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,
Some white tremendous daybreak."

RUPERT BROOKE.

I

That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the grey
dim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that she
was lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closed
and she knew that every room was empty.

It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.--She
could not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would be
familiar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing.
She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick in
cobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, de