The darkness closed in about eight o'clock.

Ann sat on the doorstep watching the lights in the sky shine out one by one.

Last night had been the only night which had ever possessed terrors for her, and now that she believed her father to be still alive she thought no longer with any horror of his apparition.

She wondered where he was wandering, but her heart hardened towards him.

She rested and dozed by turns upon the doorstep until about midnight.