Still getting no response he pulled his body inch by inch out of the bed-clothes, and holding his breath, found the floor with his feet stealthily, as if to cheat the wardrobe into thinking that he was still in it.  But his reason was to discover whether Elspeth had fallen asleep on her knees without her learning that he cared to know.  Almost noiselessly he worked himself along the floor, but when he stopped to bring his face nearer hers, there was such a creaking of his joints that if Elspeth did not hear it she—­she must be dead!  His knees played whack on the floor.

Elspeth only gasped once, but he heard, and remained beside her for a minute, so that she might hug him if such was her desire; and she put out her hand in the darkness so that his should not have far to travel alone if it chanced to be on the way to her.  Thus they sat on their knees, each aghast at the hard-heartedness of the other.

Tommy put the blankets over the kneeling figure, and presently announced from the wardrobe that if he died of cold before repenting the blame of keeping him out of heaven would be Elspeth’s.  But the last word was muffled, for the blankets were tucked about him as he spoke, and two motherly little arms gave him the embrace they wanted to withhold.  Foiled again, he kicked off the bed-clothes and said:  “I tell yer I wants to die!”

This terrified both of them, and he added, quickly: 

“Oh, God, if I was sure I were to die to-night I would repent at once.”  It is the commonest prayer in all languages, but down on her knees slipped Elspeth again, and Tommy, who felt that it had done him good, said indignantly:  “Surely that is religion.  What?”

He lay on his face until he was frightened by a noise louder than thunder in the daytime—­the scraping of his eyelashes on the pillow.  Then he sat up in the wardrobe and fired his three last shots.

“Elspeth Sandys, I’m done with yer forever, I am.  I’ll take care on yer, but I’ll never kiss yer no more.

“When yer boasts as I’m your brother I’ll say you ain’t.  I’ll tell my mother about Reddy the morn, and syne she’ll put you to the door smart.

“When you are a grown woman I’ll buy a house to yer, but you’ll have jest to bide in it by your lonely self, and I’ll come once a year to speir how you are, but I won’t come in, I won’t—­I’ll jest cry up the stair.”

The effect of this was even greater than he had expected, for now two were in tears instead of one, and Tommy’s grief was the more heartrending, he was so much better at everything than Elspeth.  He jumped out of the wardrobe and ran to her, calling her name, and he put his arms round her cold body, and the dear mite, forgetting how cruelly he had used her, cried, “Oh, tighter, Tommy, tighter; you didn’t not mean it, did yer?  Oh, you is terrible fond on me, ain’t yer?  And you won’t not tell my mother ‘bout Reddy, will yer, and you is no done wi’ me forever, is yer? and you won’t not put me in a house by myself, will yer?  Oh, Tommy, is that the tightest you can do?”