“Don’t mind, my darling!” murmured Wolf, when, in a troubled pause after these attempts, he noticed her back shaken by weeping. “Come on to bed, honey⁠—to bed, to bed! You’re lucky not to have started a hoot-owl answering you. I fancied I heard one of those demons, when I woke up in the middle of the night last night. Come on, Gerda; there’s a good girl!”

He had never heard a human sigh so deeply drawn as the one he heard now from that open window. But she got up slowly upon her feet and blew out the candle.

He threw back the bedclothes and smoothed out the pillow for her head. Tightly he held her when she stretched herself out by his side.

“Well, there it is!” he thought. “Life has scotched her just as it has me. Urquhart’s cheque has brought me down. Weevil’s brown suit has done the same for her. Well, we must get on somehow. Shall I say good night to her before I let myself go to sleep? No; better not! Better just hold tight to her⁠ ⁠… and drift on in our barge⁠—down, down the stream⁠ ⁠… drift on in our barge!”