s--furnished a musical
break in the silence. So tensely mechanical does one's brain become
under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the
exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling
quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself _"Now!"_ the
chime did not ring out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at
three o'clock on a sleepless morning the grasshopper is a burden.

Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of
Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked
round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a
kimono,--I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and the
curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered upon it
winked at me in the firelight,--and she held an incongruous-looking
coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means empty, but she handed
it to Robin with a little nod of authority and vanished again.

I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the
coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he
picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into
neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed
through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the
fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound.

It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick; so
Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and at
intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door to
the tireless Dolly.

Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered spasms
of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would grant
the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind that
ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling delirium,
through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she would be
wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her calling
her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even
"Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But
more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too
plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland
separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her
voice rose to a scream.

"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's c