Something was stirring in the room, too. With hands that shook, she
lit the candle and, by its gleam, discovered Roderick, the eldest
child, sitting up in bed, his red-gold mop all tumbled, his eyes, full
of dreams, fixed on her with a wide stare. She crossed the room, and
knelt beside him.

"What is it, darling?"

"I thought my nannie was there," he murmured.

"Your nannie?" she echoed, in surprise, knowing that "nannie" was the
common name for any black nurse who tended and waited on them. "But
she is in bed and asleep long ago."

"I don't mean _that_ one. I mean my nannie what's dead--Sophy."

The girl's backbone grew chill. She remembered hearing that the
children had been always minded by an educated old Basuto woman called
Sophy, who had been a devoted slave to each from birth up, and because
of whose death, a few months back, a series of English governesses had
come and gone at the farm.

She remembered, too, those fluty whispers that resembled no human voice.

"Lie down, darling, and sleep," she said gently. "I will stay by you."

The boy did not instantly obey. He had a whim to sit up, watching.
There was no fear in his wide grey eyes, but it was uncanny to see them
searching the shadows of the room and returning always, with a fixed,
somnambulistic stare, to the window. Christine had a fancy that
children, with the memories of another world clinging to them, have a
vision of unseen things denied to older people; and she wondered
painfully what was going on in the mind behind this handsome little
face. At last, she prevailed upon him to lie down, but it was long
before he slept. Even then, she sat on, holding his hand, keeping
vigil over him and the two other small sleepers.

They were lovely children. Each head glowed red-gold upon its pillow,
and each little profile was of a regularity almost classical, with the
pure colouring peculiar to red-haired people. The boy's face was well
sprinkled with freckles, but five-year-old Marguerite and little Coral,
of four, who were perfect little imps of mischief, had the dainty
snow-pink look of daisies growing in a meadow with their faces turned
up to God.

It was difficult to connect such fragrant, well-tended flowers with the
whistling horror out in the darkness. More, it was absurd, impossible.
The girl decided that the whole thing was a bad nightmare which she
must shake off. The explanation of it could only be that, half asleep,
she had d