After evening prayers, read by one of the assistant-masters, for the Doctor did not appear again, we were enjoined to go up to our bedrooms with as little noise as possible, and we had been in bed some time before Sutcliffe, the old butler, came up as usual to put out the lights. On this occasion he was assailed by a fire of eager whispers from every door: 'Sutcliffe, hi! old Sutty, how is she?' but he did not seem to hear, until a cry louder than the rest brought him to our room. 'For God's sake, gentlemen, don't!' he said, in a hoarse whisper, as he turned out the light; 'they'll hear you downstairs.' 'But how is she? do you know--better?' 'Ay,' he said, 'she's better. She'll be over her trouble soon, will Miss Marjory!' A low murmur of delight ran round the room, which the butler tried to check in vain. 'Don't!' he said again, 'wait--wait till morning.... Go to sleep quiet now, and I'll come up first thing and tell you.' He had no sooner turned his back than the general relief broke out irrepressibly; Ormsby being especially demonstrative. 'Didn't I tell you fellows so?' he said triumphantly; 'as if it was likely a plucky girl like Marjory would mind a little cut like that. She'll be all right in the morning, you see!' But this confidence jarred upon me, who could not pretend to share it, until I was unable to restrain the torturing anxiety I felt. 'You're wrong--all of you!' I cried, 'I'm sure she's not better. Didn't you hear how Sutcliffe said it? She's _worse_--she may even be dying!' I met with the usual treatment of a prophet of evil. 'You young muff,' I was told on all sides, 'who asked your opinion? Who are you, to know better than anyone else?' Ormsby attacked me hotly for trying to excite a groundless alarm, and I was recommended to hold my tongue and go to sleep. I said no more, but I could not sleep; the others dropped off one by one, Ormsby being the last; but I lay awake listening and thinking, until the dread and suspense grew past bearing. I _must_ know the truth. I would go down and find the Doctor, and beg him to tell me; he might be angry and punish me--but that would be nothing in comparison with the relief of knowing my fear was unfounded. Stealthily I slipped out of bed, stole through the dim room to the door, and down the old staircase, which creaked under my bare feet. The dog in the yard howled as I passed the big window, through which the stars were sparkling frostily in the keen blue sky. Outside the room in which Marjory lay, I listened, but could hear nothing. At least she was sleeping, then, and, relieved already, I went on down to the hall. The big clock on a table there was ticking solemnly, like a slow footfall; the lamp was alight, so the Doctor must be still up. With a heart that beat loudly I went to his study door and lifted my hand to knock, when from within rose a sound at which the current of my blood stopped and ran backwards--the terrible, heartbroken grief of a grown man.