"There is a light burning in one of the rooms," he said. "It must be there that"--He broke off in the midst of a sentence, his attention suddenly attracted by a figure which flitted across one of the patches of moonlight. He knew it at once, though he had had no thought of seeing it before entering the house. It was Bertha, in a white dress, and with two large dogs following her, leaping and panting, when she spoke in a hushed voice, as if to quiet them. She came down toward the gate with a light, hurried tread, and, when she was within a few feet of it, spoke. "Doctor," she said, "oh, how glad I am--how glad!" and, as she said it, came out into the broad moonlight again, and found herself face to face with Tredennis. She fell back from him as if a blow had been struck her,--fell back trembling, and as white as the moonlight itself. "What!" she cried, "is it _you_--_you_?" He looked at her, bewildered by the shock his presence seemed to her. "I did not think I should frighten you," he said. "I came to-night because the professor was not well enough to make the journey. Doctor Wentworth will be here in the morning. He would have come with me, but he had an important case to attend." "I did not think _you_ would come," she said, breathlessly, and put out her hand, groping for the support of the swinging gate, which she caught and held. "There was no one else," he answered. He felt as if he were part of some strange dream. The stillness, the moonlight, the heavy shadows of the great trees, all added to the unreality of the moment; but most unreal of all was Bertha herself, clinging with one trembling hand to the gate, and looking up at him with dilated eyes. "I did not think _you_ would come," she said again, "and it startled me--and"--She paused with a poor little effort at a smile, which the next instant died away. "Don't--don't look at me!" she said, and, turning away from him, laid her face on the hand clinging to the gate. He looked down at her slight white figure and bent head, and a great tremor passed over him. The next instant she felt him standing close at her side. "You must not--do that," he said, and put out his hand and touched her shoulder. His voice was almost a whisper; he was scarcely conscious of what his words were; he had scarcely any consciousness of his touch. The feeling which swept over him needed no sense of touch or sound; the one thing which overpowered him was his sudden sense of a nearness to her which was not physical nearness at all. "Perhaps I was wrong to come," he went on; "but I could not leave you alone--I could not leave you alone. I knew that you were suffering, and I could not bear that." She did not speak or lift her head. "Has it been desolate?" he asked. "Yes," she answered, in a hushed voice. "I was afraid so," he said. "You have been alone so long--I thought of it almost every hour of the day; you are not used to being alone. Perhaps it was a mistake. Why do you tremble so?"