east to get some sleep." She found me very
docile; I kissed her, and said good-night. I had my own idea.

When all was quiet in the house, I stole out into the passage and
listened at the door of my father's room.

I heard his regular breathing, and opened the door and went in. The
composing medicine, of which I was in search, was not on the table by
his bedside. I found it in the cupboard--perhaps placed purposely out of
his reach. They say that some physic is poison, if you take too much of
it. The label on the bottle told me what the dose was. I dropped it into
the medicine glass, and swallowed it, and went back to my father.

Very gently, so as not to wake him, I touched poor papa's forehead with
my lips. "I must have some of your medicine," I whispered to him; "I
want it, dear, as badly as you do."

Then I returned to my own room--and lay down in bed, waiting to be
composed.

CHAPTER XXXI. EUNICE'S DIARY.

My restless nights are passed in Selina's room.

Her bed remains near the window. My bed has been placed opposite, near
the door. Our night-light is hidden in a corner, so that the faint glow
of it is all that we see. What trifles these are to write about! But
they mix themselves up with what I am determined to set down in
my Journal, and then to close the book for good and all. I had not
disturbed my little friend's enviable repose, either when I left our
bed-chamber, or when I returned to it. The night was quiet, and the
stars were out. Nothing moved but the throbbing at my temples. The
lights and shadows in our half-darkened room, which at other times
suggest strange resemblances to my fancy, failed to disturb me now. I
was in a darkness of my own making, having bound a handkerchief, cooled
with water, over my hot eyes. There was nothing to interfere with the
soothing influence of the dose that I had taken, if my father's medicine
would only help me.

I began badly. The clock in the hall struck the quarter past the
hour, the half-past, the three-quarters past, the new hour. Time was
awake--and I was awake with Time.

It was such a trial to my patience that I thought of going back to my
father's room, and taking a second dose of the medicine, no matter what
the risk might be. On attempting to get up, I became aware of a change
in me. There was a dull sensation in my limbs which seemed to bind them
down on the bed. It was the strangest feeling. My will said, Get up--and
my heavy limbs said, No.