in telling her so he
had looked at her with eyes that seemed to implore her to trust him. And
she, on hearing it, had been merely dumb and irresponsive, not
forbidding or repellent, as she ought to have been. The courage to wound
him to the quick--to leave him bereft, to go out into the desert
herself, seemed to be more and more oozing away from her.

Yet there beside her bed, on the table which held her Testament, and the
few books--almost all given her by W.F.--to which she was wont to turn
in her wakeful hours, was George's photograph in uniform. About three
o'clock in the morning she lit her candle, and lay looking at it, till
suddenly she stretched out her hand for it, kissed it repeatedly, and
putting it on her breast, clasped her hands over it, and so fell asleep.

But before she fell asleep, she was puzzled by the sounds in Bridget's
room next door. Bridget seemed to be walking about--pacing up and down
incessantly. Sometimes the steps would cease; only to begin again after
a while with the same monotony. What could be the matter with Bridget?
This vague worry about her sister entered into and heightened all
Nelly's other troubles. Yet all the same, in the end, she fell asleep;
and the westerly wind blowing over Wetherlam, and chasing wild flocks of
grey rain-clouds before him, found no one awake in the cottage or the
farm to listen to the concert he was making with the fells, but
Bridget--and Cicely.

* * * * *

Bridget Cookson had indeed some cause for wakefulness. Locked away in
the old workbox, where she kept the papers to which she attached
importance, was a letter bearing the imprint 'O.A.S.,' which had been
delivered to her on Sunday afternoon by the Grasmere post-mistress. It
ran as follows:

'DEAR MISS COOKSON,--I know of course that you are fully convinced the
poor fellow we have here in charge has nothing to do with your
brother-in-law. But as you saw him, and as the case may throw light on
other cases of a similar nature, I thought I would just let you know
that owing apparently to the treatment we have been carrying out, there
are some very interesting signs of returning consciousness since your
visit, though nothing very definite as yet. He is terribly ill, and
physically I see no chance for him. But I think he _may_ be able to tell
us who he is before the end, in which case I will inform you, lest you
should now or at any future time feel the smallest misgivin