He had read of the marvels of hypnotism and somnambulism. Perhaps in some strange way his mother's desire to have Leo love her son had sent the girl straight to his bedside. There was something uncanny in her speech and in her gestures--only in her kiss had she been solidly, warmly human.
And yet all this seemed so difficult to believe--and besides, if the girl came in her sleep, did it not prove her love quite as conclusively? It might be unconscious, but it was there.
With heart pounding mightily, and face set and stern, he left his room and began descending the stairway, uncertain still of the way in which he should meet her.
Happily he found no one in the dining-room but the maid, who said to him, "Mr. Bartol would like to see Mr. Ollnee in his study as soon as Mr. Ollnee has had his breakfast."
"Very well," he replied; "I will make short work of breakfast this morning."
As he sat thus awaiting Leo, his mind filled with the wonder of her self-surrender, he considered carefully in what way he should greet her. "She must not know that I know," he decided. "I will greet her as if I had not found the brooch, and I will leave it where she will happen upon it accidentally."
He was still at breakfast, deeply engaged with his alluring vision, when Mrs. Joyce and his mother entered the room. As he rose to greet them Mrs. Joyce asked, "Have you seen Mr. Bartol?"
"Not yet--but he is up. I am to see him soon. Where is Leo?"
"She is not feeling very brisk this morning, and is taking her coffee in bed."
He said no more, but resumed his seat, richer by this added proof of the deep perturbation through which the girl had passed. He was disappointed, and eager to see her, but the conviction that she had been sleepless from love of him put him among the clouds. He would have forgotten his appointment with Bartol had not the maid reminded him of it. Even then he tried to avoid it. "You're sure he wanted me? Didn't he mean my mother?"
"Mother, what do you suppose he wants of me?"
"I don't know, Victor. Perhaps he wants to talk over the trial."
"Come back and tell us as soon as you can," commanded Mrs. Joyce. "I'm crazy to know what he did last night, and what he really thinks of us?"
Victor promised to report, and went away to his interview with a vague alarm disturbing the blissful self-satisfaction of the early morning.