off the regal-looking dress with the golden girdle and laid it carelessly
aside. She seemed to be growing smaller.

In her white night dress, with her hair in two long plaits, she looked at
herself once more. She seemed to be no one of any importance at all:
just a long little girl going to bed. With no one to kiss her good
night.

She blew out the candle and climbed into the big bed, feeling very
lonesome as she used to when a child. It had not troubled her until to-
night. Suddenly she sat up again. She needn't be back in London before
Tuesday evening, and to-day was only Friday. She would run down home and
burst in upon her father. He would be so pleased to see her.

She would make him put his arms around her.




CHAPTER VIII


She reached home in the evening. She thought to find her father in his
study. But they told her that, now, he usually sat alone in the great
drawing-room. She opened the door softly. The room was dark save for a
flicker of firelight; she could see nothing. Nor was there any sound.

"Dad," she cried, "are you here?"

He rose slowly from a high-backed chair beside the fire.