The sound like a lost lamb's crying had ceased when they reached her. The worst was over but she lay on the heather shut in by the little thicket of gorse and broom--white and with heavily closed lids. She had not wandered far and had plainly crept into the enclosing growth for utter seclusion. Finding it she had lost hold and been overwhelmed. That was all. But as Jock Macaur carried her back to Darreuch, Dowie followed with slow heavy feet and heart. They took her to the Tower room and laid her on her sofa because she had faintly whispered. "Please let me lie by the window," as they mounted the stone stairs. "Open it wide," she whispered again when Macaur had left them alone. "Are you--are you short of breath, my dear?" Dowie asked opening the window very wide indeed. "No," still in a whisper and with closed eyes. "But--when I am not so tired--I want to--look--" She was silent for a few moments and Dowie stood by her side and watched her. "--At the end of the heather," the faint voice ended its sentence after a pause. "I feel as if--something is there." She opened her eyes, "Something--I don't know what. 'Something.' Dowie!" frightened, "Are you--crying?" Dowie frankly and helplessly took out a handkerchief and sat down beside her. She had never done such a thing before. "You cry yourself, my lamb," she said. "Let Dowie cry a bit." CHAPTER XXVII And the next morning came the "waking up" for which Dowie had so long waited and prayed. But not as Dowie had expected it or in the way she hard thought "Nature." She had scarcely left her charge during the night though she had pretended that she had slept as usual in an adjoining room. She stole in and out, she sat by the bed and watched the face on the pillow and thanked God that--strangely enough--the child slept. She had not dared to hope that she would sleep, but before midnight she became still and fell into a deep quiet slumber. It seemed deep, for she ceased to stir and it was so quiet that once or twice Dowie became a little anxious and bent over her to look at her closely and listen to her breathing. But, though the small white face was always a touching sight, it was no whiter than usual and her breathing though low and very soft was regular. "But where the strength's to come from the good God alone knows!" was Dowie's inward sigh. The clock had just struck one when she leaned forward again. What she saw would not have disturbed her if she had not been overstrung by long anxiety. But now--after the woeful day--in the middle of the night with the echo of the clock's solitary sound still in the solitary room--in the utter stillness of moor and castle emptiness she was startled almost to fright. Something had happened to the pitiful face. A change had come over it--not a change which had stolen gradually but a change which was actually sudden. It was smiling--it had begun to smile that pretty smile which was a very gift of God in itself.