of which was such that, with her dress, which
was white--being, in fact, a nightgown--and her hair, which was hanging
loose about her shoulders and down to her waist, it led Robert at once
to the conclusion (his reasoning faculties already shaken by the events
of the night) that she was an angel come down to comfort his grannie;
and he kneeled involuntarily at the foot of the stair, and gazed up at
her, with the cakes in one hand, and the mug of water in the other, like
a meat-and-drink offering. Whether he had closed his eyes or bowed his
head, he could not say; but he became suddenly aware that the angel had
vanished--he knew not when, how, or whither. This for a time confirmed
his assurance that it was an angel. And although he was undeceived
before long, the impression made upon him that night was never effaced.
But, indeed, whatever Falconer heard or saw was something more to him
than it would have been to anybody else.

Elated, though awed, by the vision, he felt his way up the stair in
the new darkness, as if walking in a holy dream, trod as if upon sacred
ground as he crossed the landing where the angel had stood--went up and
up, and found Shargar wide awake with expectant hunger. He, too, had
caught a glimmer of the light. But Robert did not tell him what he had
seen. That was too sacred a subject to enter upon with Shargar, and he
was intent enough upon his supper not to be inquisitive.

Robert left him to finish it at his leisure, and returned to cross his
grandmother's room once more, half expecting to find the angel standing
by her bedside. But all was dark and still. Creeping back as he had
come, he heard her quiet, though deep, breathing, and his mind was at
ease about her for the night. What if the angel he had surprised had
only come to appear to grannie in her sleep? Why not? There were such
stories in the Bible, and grannie was certainly as good as some of the
people in the Bible that saw angels--Sarah, for instance. And if the
angels came to see grannie, why should they not have some care over his
father as well? It might be--who could tell?

It is perhaps necessary to explain Robert's vision. The angel was the
owner of the boxes he had seen at The Bear's Head. Looking around her
room before going to bed, she had seen a trap in the floor near the
wall, and raising it, had discovered a few steps of a stair leading down
to a door. Curiosity naturally led her to examine it. The key was in the
lock. It