CHAPTER XV
_A WARNING_
I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but
I ought to have known that no sound could reach me where I was from my
father's study. Five minutes passed and they did not return. Ten, fifteen.
I drew near the fire and made myself comfortable in a great arm-chair,
looking on the embers, but not seeing all the scenery and _dramatis
personae_ of my past life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow,
as people in romances usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in
blood-red and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders,
sunsets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping and partly
shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes and drowsy senses off into
dream-land. So I nodded and dozed, and sank into a deep slumber, from which
I was roused by the voice of my cousin Monica. On opening my eyes, I saw
nothing but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into mine, and expanding
into a good-natured laugh as she watched the vacant and lack-lustre stare
with which I returned her gaze.
'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your bed an hour
ago.
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