This continued for nearly an hour; then with a sudden movement—all her movements were sudden—she started up and looked about the room, as if in quest of something. Maurice had left his extinguished candle on the dressing-table, with a box of matches in the candlestick. Quick as thought, Muriel seized the box, struck a match, and lighted the candle, and then hurried from the room. The watcher sprang from the bed where he had been lying hidden by the shadow of the curtains, and followed that retiring figure, full of apprehension. A confirmed lunatic rushing about an old timber house with a lighted candle was not the safest of people, and Maurice held himself responsible for any harm that might happen in consequence of Muriel’s liberty. When he emerged from his room the corridor was empty, but the gleam of the candle in the distance guided his hurried steps. At the end of the corridor there was a winding stair—a stair which he had never ascended—but which he understood to lead to certain disused garrets in the roof. It was from this narrow stair that the light came, and hither Maurice hastened. He was just in time to see the edge of Muriel’s white drapery flutter for an instant on the topmost stair before it vanished, and the light with it. He rushed up the stairs, knocking his head against a heavy cross-beam in the course of his swift ascent, and almost stunning himself; but even that blow did not make him pause. He staggered on to the last step, and found himself in a kind of cavern, which in the dim light of the waning moon looked to him like the hold of a ship turned upside down. Ponderous beams crossed each other in every direction—the faint moonshine streamed through a broken skylight—cobwebs and dust hung all around, and in one corner of this deserted loft a few articles of furniture were crowded together, shrouded from the dust by some old patchwork coverlets. Even this loft had doubtless been kept in good order so long as that vigilant housewife, Bridget Trevanard had been able to attend to her domestic duties. Muriel was kneeling near this shrouded heap of discarded furniture—kneeling by an old-fashioned basket-work cradle. She held the candlestick in one hand, and seemed to be searching for something in the cradle with the other hand. Her head was bent, her brow contracted, and she was muttering to herself as she groped among the tumbled blankets and discoloured linen which had once made the warm nest of some idolized infant. Her own nest, most likely. Maurice stopped short. To startle her in such a moment might be dangerous. Better for him to hold his peace, and keep a watch upon her movements, ready to rush to the rescue, should there be peril.