he burned-down candles had passed away.

He lay imbibing the sweet sounds and freshness through ear and nostril;
but for a time his eyes remained fast closed. Then, at a loud thrilling
burst from the lark's cage in the courtyard, both eyes opened, and he
lay staring up at the whitewashed ceiling, covered with cracks, and
looking like the map of Nowhere in Wonderland. For the lark sang very
sweetly to charm the wished-for mate, which never came, and Frank smiled
and gradually lowered his eyes so that they were fixed upon the
uncurtained window till the lark finished its lay.

Then, and then only, did he begin to think in the way a boy muses when
his senses grow more and more awake. First of all he began to wonder
why it was that the window was wide-open--not that it mattered, for the
air was very cool and sweet; then why it was his bedroom looked so
strange; then why it was that the blanket was close up to his face
without the sheet; and, lastly, he sat up feeling that horrible sense of
depression which comes over us like a cloud when there has been trouble
on the previous day--trouble which has been forgotten.

For a moment or two he felt that he must be dreaming. But no, he was
dressed, this was Captain Murray's room, there was the door open leading
into the chamber where Andrew Forbes lay, and yes--Then it all came with
crushing force--he lay wounded after that mad attempt to escape, while
the friend who had offered to sit with him and watch had calmly lain
down and gone to sleep.

"Oh, it is monstrous!" panted the boy, as he threw the blanket aside,
and stepped softly, and trembling with excitement, toward the chamber.
For now the dread came that something might have happened during the
night, in despite of the doctor's calm way of treating the injury.

The idea was so terrible that, as he reached the door, he stopped short,
and turned a ghastly white, not daring to look in. But recalling now
that he had heard his friend's breathing quite plainly over-night, he
listened with every nerve on the strain. Not a sound, till the lark
burst forth again.

He hesitated no longer, but, full of shame and self-reproach for that
which he could not help, he stepped softly into the room, and then stood
still, staring hard at the bed, and at a blood-stained handkerchief
lying where it had been thrown upon the floor.

For a few moments the lad did not stir--he was perfectly stunned; and
then he began to look slowly round