Having delivered his message the librarian waited while Esther put on her hat. She dressed very prettily, in the picturesque fashion of a day which had an artistic movement all to itself. Her cloak and flat cap of green velvet were like the sheathing of a flower. As she came from the inner room so attired, the librarian’s eyes fluttered as though he had seen a vision. ‘I will carry these for you,’ he said, lifting the parcel of books. Miss Brooke did not appear to notice. She had a queer way of suddenly leaving realities behind. The librarian replenished the fire. She did not seem to notice the noise he made. Her eyes were fixed on the picture above the fireplace. ‘What time does she go home?’ Esther Denison asked, as they went out into the dim corridor where the lights were not yet on. ‘It seems so lonely, leaving her there.’ ‘As a matter of fact’—the librarian had the slightest hesitation of speech, which gave him the air of a gentle deference—‘she does not go home. I do not believe she has any home to go to.’ ‘Then she lives here?’ ‘I believe she sleeps in front of the fire. It was a long time before we discovered that she remained here at night, after every one was gone. When we discovered—it is an irregularity of course—but—we wink at it. We could not discover that she had anywhere to go to or any friends. She does no harm. She is always about—as though she has just arrived—when the servants begin to arrange the rooms in the morning. She is not really mad, you know. She has only hallucinations. She has been coming here so long that she seems to belong to the house.’ ‘It is a beautiful house to belong to,’ Esther said, as though she were talking to herself. ‘I am glad you let her stay.’ A little later a thought came to her. Supposing Miss Brooke were to be taken ill in the night? Some one, she supposed, slept on the premises. Only the front of the house—the main block, in which had been the reception-rooms—was used as library and reading-rooms. There was the underground story, in which no servant would sleep nowadays; but there was also abundant room at the back, or at the top of the house—not accessible from this part. She had already ascertained that there was no communication between these rooms and a great portion of the old house. The rooms suddenly ceased in a wall of books. The communication must have been blocked up. She was working very hard at this time. The annoying thing was that, as the examination came near, she began to find it difficult to concentrate her thoughts. Perhaps she had been working too hard. It could not be that ‘Middle Irish’ was losing its fascination for her; but, little by little, she found that something was coming between her and the folios and manuscripts. The something was—it took the shape of—the portrait of the Beloved. Once or twice she fell asleep, just as Miss Brooke did, and slept, her face upon her folded arms, amid the scattered learning on the table.