e gate. He listened. Yes, there was no
mistake. He went to it, and asked quietly:

"Who is there?"

There was no reply. Still the knocking went on. He quietly opened the
gate, and threw it back. A figure in white stepped through and slowly
passed him. It was Alice Wingfield. He spoke to her. She did not answer.
He went close to her and saw that she was asleep!

She was making for the entrance door. He took her hand gently, and led
her into a side door, and on into the ballroom. She moved towards a
window through which the moonlight streamed, and sat on a cushioned
bench beneath it. It was the spot where he had seen her at the dance.
She leaned forward, looking into space, as she did at him then. He moved
and got in her line of vision.

The picture was weird. She wore a soft white chamber-gown, her hair
hung loose on her shoulders, her pale face cowled it in. The look
was inexpressibly sad. Over her fell dim, coloured lights from the
stained-glass windows; and shadowy ancestors looked silently down from
the armour-hung walls.

To Gaston, collected as he was, it gave an ominous feeling. Why did she
come here even in her sleep? What did that look mean? He gazed intently
into her eyes.

All at once her voice came low and broken, and a sob followed the words:

"Gaston, my brother, my brother!"

He stood for a moment stunned, gazing helplessly at her passive figure.

"Gaston, my brother!" he repeated to himself. Then the painful matter
dawned upon him. This girl, the granddaughter of the rector of the
parish, was his father's daughter--his own sister. He had a sudden
spring of new affection--unfelt for those other relations, his by the
rights of the law and the gospel. The pathos of the thing caught him in
the throat--for her how pitiful, how unhappy! He was sure that, somehow,
she had only come to know of it since the afternoon. Then there had been
so different a look in her face!

One thing was clear: he had no right to this secret, and it must be
for now as if it had never been. He came to her, and took her hand. She
rose. He led her from the room, out into the court-yard, and from there
through the gate into the road.

All was still. They passed over to the rectory. Just inside the gate,
Gaston saw a figure issue from the house, and come quickly towards them.
It was the rector, excited, anxious.

Gaston motioned silence, and pointed to her. Then he briefly whispered
how she had come. The clergyman said that