She began to suffer in the old way--from dizziness and nausea and pains for which she could not account, with an utterly inexplicable weakness and languor, different from all her former symptoms. Perhaps Mrs. Vane had altered her treatment. At any rate, it was certain that some mysterious factor was at work stealing the girl's energy away from her, diminishing her vitality, bringing her, in short, to the very gates of death. And so insidiously did the work proceed that even Parker, who had had suspicions of her mistress, scarcely noticed the advance of Enid's malady. There were no more fainting-fits--nothing definitely alarming; but day by day the girl grew weaker, and no one noticed or guessed the reason why. Enid's nights were restless; but she had not been disturbed since Flossy's return from London by the white figure which she had seen at her bedside. She told herself that Maurice was right--that her nerves had played her false, and that the appearances had been a mere phantasm of her imagination. She quite lost her fear of seeing it again; and, although she had held no further conversation with the Rector after Mrs. Vane's arrival in the house, she was reassured and strengthened by the remembrance of his words. When she awoke in the night-time now, she knew no fear. And yet--it was about three weeks after the beginning of Hubert Lepel's illness--her heart gave a wild leap when she opened her eyes one night, and saw in her room, by the faint light of a glimmering taper, the ghostly figure of a woman clothed from head to foot in white. She stood, not by the bedside, but by the mantelpiece, with something--was it a medicine-phial?--in her hand. What the visitant was doing Enid could not exactly see; but she started up, and at the movement the white woman turned and showed her face. Enid uttered an exclamation--a sort of gasp of terror--for her worst fears were realised. The phantom which she had dreaded had come to her again in spite of Maurice's promises of aid. He had forgotten to pray for her perhaps--a childish notion crossed her mind that perhaps because of his forgetfulness the ghost was there. But was it a ghost--a phantom of the senses, and not a living woman after all? For the face which met the girl's eyes was not one that she could easily mistake--it was the face of Florence Vane. CHAPTER XLIII.