The Major laughed, feebly, but with enjoyment. "I didn't want _you_ to know that _I_ didn't know everything--even the country roads," he answered. "For I was old enough to be your father, and you were such a little thing; I had my dignity to keep up, you see." He laughed again. "That spring was very cold, wasn't it?" he said, and he lay thinking of it for a minute or two. Then slowly his eyes closed; he had fallen asleep. They waited, but he did not waken. His sleep was peaceful, and they went back again to their watch in the outer room. "It is two o'clock, mamma. Won't you lie down for a while? I am strong, and not at all tired; if he should waken, I will at once call you." "I could not sleep," answered Madam Carroll, taking her former seat. "We could neither of us sleep, I fancy, while there was the least danger of the fever's returning--as the doctor said it might." "I thought perhaps you might rest, even if you did not sleep." "I shall never be any more rested than I am now," answered the Major's wife. After a silence of some length she spoke again; "In all this we should not forget Mr. Owen," she said, as though taking up a task which must be performed. "I feel sure that he is suffering deeply. You know what he must be thinking?" "So long as he does not speak, what he thinks is of small consequence," said Miss Carroll. "It may be so to you. It is not to him." She paused. "I can remember that I once liked him," she went on, in a monotonous tone. "And I can even believe that I shall like him again. But not now, not now. Now it is too near--those cruel words he spoke about my boy." "He did not know--" "Of course he did not; and I try to be just. He was angry, hurt, alarmed; he was hurt that I should treat him as I did--I treated him horribly--and he was alarmed about you. I have never thanked you for what you did that day, Sara--the day he came to warn us; I could not. For I knew how you loathed it--the expedient you took. You only took it because there was no other." "You are very hard to me, mamma." "About your feeling I am; how can I help it? But not about the deed: that was noble. In order to help me you let Mr. Owen suppose that you were engaged to a man he--he utterly despised. Well, you helped me. But you hurt him; you hurt Frederick Owen that morning about as deeply as you could." She moved to Sara's side in the darkness, took her hand with a quick grasp and held it in both her own. "And you are so proud," she whispered softly, "that you will never acknowledge that you hurt yourself too; that the sacrifice you then made in lowering yourself by your own act in his eyes was as great a one as a woman can make; for he loves you devotedly, jealously, and you--_you_ know how much you care for him."