And Griselda, worn out at last, threw herself on her bed, and fell, against her will, into a deep and dreamless slumber.
The Abbey clock had struck eleven when Graves, softly opening the door, found the fire low, and the candles burned out; while on the bed lay Griselda, dressed, but with the coverlet drawn over her under the canopy of the old-fashioned tent-bed, which was the bed then commonly in use for rooms which were not spacious enough to receive a stately four-poster.
Graves had a small tin candlestick in one hand, and a letter. She carefully shielded the light, and, looking down at the sleeping girl, murmured:
"I cannot wake her. I will leave the letter on the bed; she will see it in the morning the first thing--better she should not see it till then. I promised to bring it, but I did not promise to rouse her if she was asleep. Poor child! Poor dear! May the Lord pity her and draw her to Himself!"
Graves moved gently about the room, and put the tinder-box near the candlestick, and then softly closed the door, and went downstairs to sit by the side of the fractious invalid, who declared she could not be left for a moment, and who kept her patient handmaiden awake for hours, till at last she, too, sunk into a heavy sleep.
Never a night passes but in the silent watches some hearts are aching, some sick and weary ones are tossing in their uneasy beds, some suffering ones are racked with pain, either of body or mind! Our own turn must surely come; but till it does come, we are so slow to realize that for us, too, the night that should hush us to repose, and bring on its wings the angel of sleep for our refreshing, will bring instead sorrowful vigils by the dying, mourning for the dead, or cruel and biting anxiety for the living, so that tears are our meat, as we cry, "Where is now our God?"
Griselda slept on, and it was in the chill of the early morning before the dawn that she awoke.
She started up, and at first could not remember what had happened. It was quite dark, and she sprang from the bed, and, groping for the tinder-box, struck a spark, and lighted a candle.
She was still scarcely awake, and it was only by slow degrees that she recalled how the evening before she had waited, and waited in vain, for a letter--his letter! an answer to hers--in which in a few words she had told him of her father, and asked him to release her from her promise if so he pleased. Then she had asked if his silence since the letter she had written two days before, meant that he desired her to think no more of him. Only to _know_, and not to be kept in uncertainty, she craved for a reply--she begged for it--by the hand of Brian Bellis, who had brought this, her last appeal.