that usually wooed her to willing slumbers. She was a sound, healthy girl, untroubled by nerves; but she felt a singular need for alertness, unreasonable perhaps, but imperative.
The Duke’s anxiety to make sure that the clerically dressed individual had really left the house had impressed her; and now, too late for inquiry, she remembered that she had omitted to mention that two men had called, one of them not having been shown into her presence. The latter, Prince had said, had been dismissed by his colleague; but his departure had only been witnessed by William, the second footman—a dreamy servant at the best of times, and unreliable by reason of a hopeless attachment to the senior housemaid. The thought thrilled Sybil that the other man, having hoodwinked the footman, might still be in the house, concealed in one of the many unused rooms.
The idea of a lurking prowler, biding his time in the stillness of the sleeping household, kept her wakeful. Once or twice she looked out into the corridor; but the flicker of her candle only showed two rows of closed doors, without a sign of life, and each time she went back and tried to fix her attention on a book.
[102]
