it being drawn up over her head until its loose frill framed her
face; but it was easy to see, as she advanced, that under that cloak she
wore a gown of white satin and slippers with sparkling buckles on the
toes. She came into view so suddenly, and was walking so rapidly, that
she was upon them almost as they saw her, walking straight to them,
walking straight by them, within touch of them, yet seeming not to care
or even to notice, and taking the path which led to the stable gate, to
the waste land beyond, and thence to Gleer Cottage. It was then, when
she had deliberately walked past them, then, and then only, that Ailsa
understood.

"Dear God!" she said in a shaking whisper as she plucked at Cleek's
sleeve. "She does not know, she does not understand. She is asleep, Mr.
Cleek!"

"Yes," he made answer. "You know now why she looked so haggard and weary
this morning, despite her assurance that she had slept well. Poor little
woman; poor unhappy little woman! A sleep-walker, Clavering--and going
back where her heart leads her: to the cottage where she had often spent
those happier days when she was so sure of love and of you!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"QUICK! FIRE!"

Geoff did not reply; he could not. As if the sight of that slow-moving
figure, linked with the realization which had now come upon him, had
wrought a curious numbing effect upon mind and heart alike, he simply
stood there, breathing hard, and looked, and looked, and looked, but
said no single word. Even Dollops could see that there was a glint of
something wet and shining in the crease beside his eye, and that, in
spite of tears, he smiled as a man might smile if he had waked to find
that all the world was his. It was Ailsa that made the first sound,
spoke the first word.

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, to think that she should be a somnambulist," she said
with a little catch in her voice, as if she were laughing and sobbing at
the same time and fighting hard to do neither. "And to think that you
should have guessed it when even I, her dearest and closest friend,
never suspected it for an instant."

"Oh, as for that, Miss Lorne, I really deserve very little credit
indeed," he made answer.

For a moment he followed with his eyes the departing figure of Lady
Katharine as it moved fleetly along the path to the stable quarters,
where stood the stile giving access to the paddock and thence, by a
far-away wall door, to the waste land of the open country beyond.