Through all, and interwoven even with her bitter grief, was the memory of that happy night--surely long ago ?--when she had sat in the warm air of the cynos, and Gethin had danced into her heart.

Oh, the pity of it! such love to be offered her, and to be thrust aside! "That is what I would say if I were Will!" And all night every sorrowful longing, every endeavour after resignation, every prayer for strength, ended with the same refrain, "If he were Will! if he were Will!" Tick, tack, tick, tack! the old clock filled the night air with its measured beat.

"Surely it does not tick so loudly in the day ?" she thought.
Ten, eleven, and twelve had struck, and still Morva lay wakeful, with wide-open eyes, watching the hurrying clouds.

At last she slept for an hour or two, and her uninterrupted breathing showed that the invigorating sleep of youth had at length fallen upon her weary eyelids.

For an hour or two she slept, but at last she suddenly stirred, and in a moment was wide awake, with every sense strained to the utmost.
What had awakened her she could not tell.