That was once when she was very small, when her father was dangerously sick, and the coming of the doctor had wakened her.

She had always somehow associated the hour with mysterious flickering lights, and anxious whispers and softened steps, and a dread as terrible as it was undefined.

Now, out here in this desolate place, where the birds were asleep in their nests, and the winds quiet among the mountain-tops, and the very frogs tired of their chanting,--herself the only waking thing,--these two far, deep-toned syllables seemed like a human voice.

Like the voice, Gypsy fancied, of some one imprisoned for years in the belfry, and crying to get out.
Two o'clock.

Three--four--five--six.