Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a kimono,--I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and the curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered upon it winked at me in the firelight,--and she held an incongruous-looking coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means empty, but she handed it to Robin with a little nod of authority and vanished again. I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound. It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick; so Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and at intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door to the tireless Dolly. Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered spasms of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would grant the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind that ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling delirium, through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she would be wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her calling her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even "Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her voice rose to a scream. "Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming--it's breaving on me! Uncle _Robin_! oh----!" I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair, with every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself, was praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a child. Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of Kitty's voice. "It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt you. There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!" Kitty's tones would have lightened the torments of the Pit, and Phillis's cries presently died down to an uneasy whisper. After a sudden and curiously pathetic little outburst of singing,--chiefly a jumble of scraps from such old favourites as "Onward, Christian _Sailors_!"--there was silence again, and the Cathedral chimed out half-past four. Shortly after this the doctor came out of the room with a message from Kitty that I ought to be in bed. Evidently Dolly had told her about me.