Still, after this discovery, it is vitally necessary to learn more. I have sat up till midnight, waiting Treherne's return. He did not overtake me--I never expected he would--or desired it. I came back, when I did come back, another way. His hut, next to mine, is still silent. So is the whole camp at this hour. Refreshing myself a few minutes since by standing bare-headed at my hut-door, I saw nothing but the stars overhead, and the long lines of lamps below; heard nothing but the sigh of the moorland wind, and the tramp of the sentries relieving guard. I must wait a little longer; to sleep would be impossible till I have tried to find out as much as I can. What if it should be _that_--the worst? which might inevitably produce--or leave me no reason longer to defer--the end? ***** Here it seemed as if with long pondering my faculties became torpid. I fell into a sort of dream; which, being broken by a face looking in at me through the window, a sickness of perfectly childish terror came over me. For an instant only--and then I had put away my writing-materials and unbolted the door. Treherne came in, laughing violently. "Why, Doctor, did you take me for a ghost?" "You might have been. You know what happened last week to those poor young fellows coming home from a dinner-party in a dogcart." "By George I do!" The thought of this accident, which had greatly shocked the whole camp, sobered him at once. "To be knocked over in action is one thing; but to die with one's head under a carriage-wheel--ugh!--Doctor, did ye really think something of the sort had befallen me? Thank you; I had no idea you cared so much for a harum-scarum fellow like me." He could not be left believing an untruth; so I said, my startled looks were not on his account; the fact was, I had been writing closely for some hours, and was nervous--rather. The notion of my having "nerves," afforded him considerable amusement. "But that is just what Dora persisted--good sort of creature, isn't she? the one you walked with from church. I told her you were as strong as iron and as hard as a rock, and she said she didn't believe it; that yours was one of the most sensitive faces she had ever seen." "I am very much obliged to Miss Theodora--I really was not aware of it myself." "Nor I either, faith! but women are so sharp-sighted. Ah, Doctor, you don't half know their ways." I concluded he had stayed at Rockmount; had he spent a pleasant day? "Pleasant? ecstatic. Now, acknowledge--isn't she a glorious girl? Such a mouth--such an eye--such an arm! Altogether a magnificent creature. Don't you think so? Speak out, I shan't be jealous." I said, with truth, she was an extremely handsome young woman.