hieves unless they
were caught red-handed.

But so anxious was Mrs. Orban to keep the servants that she
disregarded Robertson's opinion, and the reward was duly offered.
The engineer had one proposal to make, which was accepted. With
Mrs. Orban's leave, he said, he, with his wife and two little
children, would come up the hill and sleep in the house until Mr.
Orban's return. There would be safety in numbers; and if the night
visitor came again, some one to deal with him better than by
screaming at him.

In spite of the fuller house, and the fact that Robertson's
eight-year-old boy was sleeping in Peter's bed that night, Eustace
did not feel particularly happy in the hours of darkness before
him, after the party had broken up and said good-night.

The door between his mother's room and his own was left open, by
way of companionship for them both, but the boy was so overtired as
to be restless and unable to go to sleep. To his excited fancy
there were unusual sounds about. The creaking of unwarping boards,
the soughing of the night breeze round the house, even Sandy
Robertson turning round in his bed, with an impatient but sleepy
flump at the heat, were noises that set his hair on end and made
him feel cold and damp all over again and again. Once or twice he
stole from his bed to peer into his mother's room, but she always
seemed asleep; or he would look stealthily out of the window, as if
he could possibly have seen anything in the dark.

Robertson, with his wife and baby, was in Nesta's room at the other
side of the house. It occurred to Eustace that if anything did
happen--anything needing immediate action--Robertson was very far
away and ungetatable. The boy sat up in bed hugging his knees,
making feverish plans as to what he should do supposing the night
visitor came again and he should see him.

Unknown to his mother, Eustace had taken the revolver he had been
entrusted with the night before to bed with him. He meant to sleep
with it under his pillow, but every time he got up to make his
investigations he took it, gripped tightly in his hand ready for
immediate use.

When the first gray light stole into the room at last, Eustace
began to feel drowsy. Almost against his will he lay back on his
pillow and fell asleep. He had determined to watch the night
through, but a great heaviness overpowered him, and he lay like a
log.

It seemed to him he had hardly closed his eyes--indeed, it cannot
have been much l