Ida had followed her father across the terrace, across the hall, lit
weirdly by the glow of the sinking fire and the pale moonlight, up the
broad stairs, along the corridor to the open door of his room. He had
walked slowly but steadily with his usual gait, and his head bent
slightly; though his eyes were wide open, he seemed to see nothing, yet
he did not stumble or even hesitate. Ida followed behind him with
absolute noiselessness. They were both ghostlike in their movements,
and the dogs stood and watched them intently, ears erect, and with that
gravity in their eyes which dogs wear when they are puzzled.
The old man closed his door softly, still without any hesitation, and
Ida, grasping the broad rail of the staircase, waited breathlessly. She
heard him moving about, as leisurely and precisely as before; then all
was still. She stole to the door and opened it; the light was streaming
into the room and fell athwart the bed in which he was lying, his eyes
closed, his face calm and peaceful; she went on tiptoe to the bed and
bent over him, and found that he was in a deep, profound sleep. With a
long breath of relief, she left him, and sat on the stairs and waited;
for it was just possible that he might rise again and resume the
dreadful walk--that motion of death in life.
She waited for an hour, so absorbed in her anxiety that she did not
remember the man she had left outside. After another quarter of an hour
she went to her father's room, and found that he was still sleeping.
Then she remembered Stafford, remembered him with a start of discomfort
and embarrassment. Was he waiting there still? She went down-stairs,
and from the open door-way she saw dimly his figure under the trees.
There was something in the attitude of the erect figure that reminded
her of a soldier on guard, a sentinel standing faithful at his post;
and when she had waved her hand in dismissal she did not quite close
the door, but watched him through the narrow opening as he paced slowly
down the road, looking back at the house now and again as if to see if
she wanted him.
Then she closed the door, signed to the dogs to be down before the
fire, and went up to her room, after pausing beside her father's door
and listening to his regular breathing. Her room was a large
one--nearly all the rooms in the place were large; and as she undressed
herself slowly she looked round it with a novel sense of loneliness.
The tall shadows of her graceful yet girlish figure were cast
grotesquely on the wall by the candles beside her glass. She had never
felt lonely before, though her life ever since she had arrived at the
Hall might be called one almost of solitude.