"If you have anything to confess, Mrs. Meldreth," he began; but Enid interrupted him. "She has confessed," said the girl, turning her face to him with a strange look of mingled humiliation and compassion--"she has confessed--and I--I have forgiven. Nurse, do you hear? God will forgive you, and I forgive you too." "God will forgive," murmured the woman. A smile flickered over her pale face. Then a change came; the light in her eyes went out, her jaw fell. A slight convulsion passed through her whole frame, and she lay still--very still. The confession, great or small, that she had made had been heard only by Enid and her God. CHAPTER XVII. "It is all over," said Maurice Evandale, looking gravely at the dead woman's face. "It is all over, and may God have mercy upon her soul!" He left Sabina, who was sobbing hysterically as she sat huddled up in the chair on which he had placed her, and came to Enid's side. She turned to him with sorrowful appeal. "Is she dead? Can nothing be done?" "Nothing. Come away, Miss Vane; this is no place for you. One moment! Have you anything to say to this woman? Have you any charge to bring?" He pointed to Sabina as he spoke, and she, roused for an instant, raised a mute terrified face from her hands, and seemed to shrink still lower in her chair, as if she would willingly have hidden herself and her secret, whatever it might be, out of sight of all the world. She waited--waited--evidently with dread--for the accusation that she expected from Enid's lips. The Rector waited also, but the accusation did not come. There was a moment's utter silence in the chamber of death. "Have you anything to say?" asked Maurice Evandale at last. Then Enid spoke. "No," she answered, with quivering lips; "I can say nothing. I--I forgave her--before she died;" and then she turned away and went swiftly out of the room, leaving the others to follow or linger as they pleased. Sabina rose from her chair and stood as if dazed, stupefied by her position. All her fierceness and defiance had left her; her face was white, her eyes were downcast, her hands hung listlessly at her sides. The Rector paused and spoke. "You hear what Miss Vane said?" She made no answer. "I do not know what you or your mother may have done. Some secret guilt evidently weighed upon her soul. Whatever it may be, she confessed her guilt and received forgiveness. Sabina Meldreth, in the presence of your dead mother and of your living God, I call upon you to do the same. If you would find mercy in the hour of your own death, confess your sin, whatever it may be, and you shall be forgiven." Still she stood silent and almost motionless, but her teeth gnawed at her white lips as if to bite them through.