For a long time he sat, looking into the fire--Then he went up to his room and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefully closing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, went down the passage to Rachel's door. The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs of some tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end. He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there. "It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened. He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, her face very white, her eyes fixed on him. "I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said. Her voice was a whisper--"No, Roddy--no--not--not----" "Yes," he said firmly. "No, not to-night." "Yes--to-night--now." He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, and hung it over a chair. He looked about the room. "Too much light"--he said and, going to the door, switched off all the lights save the one above the bed. CHAPTER XII LIZZIE'S JOURNEY--III "Exile of immortality, strongly wise, Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes, To what may be beyond it. Sets your star, O heart, for ever? Yet behind the night, Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, Some white tremendous daybreak." RUPERT BROOKE. I That night Lizzie had a dream and, waking in the early hours of the grey dim morning, saw before her every detail of it. She had dreamt that she was lost in the house. No human being was there. Every room was closed and she knew that every room was empty. It was full day, but only a dull yellow light lit the passages.--She could not find her way to the central staircase. A passage would be familiar to her and then suddenly would be dark and vague and menacing. She opened doors and found wide dusty empty rooms with windows thick in cobwebs and beyond them a garden green, tangled, deserted. She knew that if she did not escape soon some disaster would overtake her, some disaster in which both Roddy and Rachel would be involved. She knew also that, in some way, Rachel's safety absolutely depended upon her--She felt, within herself, a struggle as to whether she should save Rachel. She did not wish to save Rachel.... But some impulse drove her.... She ran down the passage, stumbling in the strange indistinct yellow light--She knew that, could she only reach the garden, Rachel would be saved. She reached a window, looked down, and saw below her, like a green pond, the lawn overgrown now with weeds and bristling with strange twisted plants. She flung open the window and tried to jump, but a cold blast of some storm met her and drove her back. The storm screamed about her, the dust rose in the room, the plants in the garden waved their heads ... the wind rushed through the house and she heard doors banging and windows creaking. She knew suddenly that she was too late--Rachel was dead.