with most
women. She preferred not to be left alone in the dark if possible to
avoid it, and, in fact, had as dread a realisation of what it meant to
be "unprotected" as the most commonplace and unheroic of her sex:
consequently, when Suffield found it unavoidable to be absent from home
a night or two, Mona was apt to conjure up terrors which interfered
materially with her peace of mind. Now, just such an absence on the
part of her male relative befell some few nights after Roden's departure
for the Main Camp.

"Oh, Grace, I do feel so nervous this evening!" she exclaimed, starting,
not for the first time, as one of the ordinary nocturnal wild sounds
from veldt or mountain-side came floating in through the open windows.
"Feel my hands, now cold they are; and yet it is such a hot night that
one wants every square foot of air the windows will admit."

"That is foolish, Mona," replied her cousin. "Yes, your hands are
indeed cold. Why, to-morrow will ring back not only Charlie, but
perhaps somebody else."

"God grant it may!" was the eager rejoinder. "But do you know, Grace, I
have a horrible presentiment on that score too; I believe that is why I
feel so shivery to-night. It is like a warning--I feel as if something
were going to happen to him--were happening!"

There was a wildness in the glance of the dilated eyes, a quick,
spasmodic catch of the voice, which disconcerted the other, who, in
ordinary matters, was the less timid of the two.

"Mona, dear, don't, for Heaven's sake, give way to such fancies. They
grow upon one so. And how you will laugh at them--at yourself--in the
morning, when Charlie comes back, and perhaps somebody else."

"I can't help it. I wish the night was over. I am sure something is
going to happen before the morning."

The two were sitting together, the supper over, and the nursery
department tucked up, snug and quiet for the night. Suffield had ridden
away to attend a sale at a distance, and would hardly return before the
following afternoon. It was, as we have said, a hot night, and both
windows of the room were open; indeed, it would have been well-nigh
impossible to breathe had they been shut. At the black spaces thus
framed Mona would stare ever and again, with a quick glance of
apprehension, as though expecting, she knew not what, to heave into view
from the gloom beyond. It was a still night, moreover, and every sound
from without was wafted in with tenfold clearness-