ld; he drew his cloak about
him; he leaned back against the wall and watched that star. So long as
he saw that, he was awake, and therefore he watched it. At what time
sleep overtook him he could never discover. It seemed to him always that
he did not even for a second lose sight of that star. Only it dilated,
it grew brighter, it dropped towards earth, and he was not in any way
surprised. He was merely pleased with it for behaving in so attractive
and natural a way. Then, however, the strange thing happened. When the
star was hung in the air between earth and sky and nearer to the earth,
it opened like a flower and disclosed in its bright heart the face of a
girl, which was yet brighter. And that girl's face, with the broad low
brows and the dark eyes and the smile which held all earth and much of
heaven, stooped and stooped out of fire through the cool dark towards
him until her lips touched his. It was then that he woke, quietly as was
his wont, without any start, without opening his eyes, and at once he
was aware of someone breathing.

He raised his eyelids imperceptibly and peered through his eyelashes. He
saw close beside him the lower part of a woman's frock, and it was the
frock which Clementina wore. One wild question set his heart leaping
within his breast. "Was there truth in the dream?" he asked himself; and
while he was yet formulating the question, Clementina's breathing was
suddenly arrested. It seemed to him, too, from the little that he saw
between his closed eyes, that she stiffened from head to foot. She stood
in that rigid attitude, very still. Something new had plainly occurred,
something that brought with it a shock of surprise. Wogan, without
moving his head or opening his eyes a fraction wider, looked down the
staircase and saw just above the edge of one of the steep stairs a face
watching them,--a face with bright, birdlike eyes and an indescribable
expression of cunning.

Wogan had need of all his self-control. He felt that his eyelids were
fluttering on his cheeks, that his breath had stopped even as
Clementina's had. For the face which he saw was one quite familiar to
him, though never familiar with that expression. It was the face of an
easy-going gentleman who made up for the lack of his wit by the
heartiness of his laugh, and to whom Wogan had been drawn because of his
simplicity. There was no simplicity in Henry Whittington's face now. It
remained above the edge of the step staring at th