"I will not frighten you again. Don't cry; I am strong now." "What was the matter? Did you see anything?" "No, no. I was only thinking; it all came up so real before me--so horrible." "But it may be made safe yet," urged Elsie. "If you can escape this time--only this once." She did not connect herself with the trouble which might befall her sister. Even in that moment of anguish, her craft and her selfishness made her remember to keep present in Elizabeth's mind the promise she had made. "Only this once," she repeated. "It is too late," returned Elizabeth. "I knew the day would come--it is here!" "But he can't discover anything, Bessie, when everybody is abed." "Have you thought what I must do?" she broke in. "The horror of appealing to that man is almost worse to bear than exposure and ruin." Elsie wrung her hands. "Don't give way now. You have borne up so long; don't give way when a little courage may save everything." "I shall not give way; I shall go through with it. But, Elsie, it will all be useless; the end has come, deception cannot prosper forever." "No, it hasn't! I'm sure it hasn't! Think how many secrets are kept for ever. It needs so little now to make all secure; only don't give way, Bessie--don't give way." "Be quiet, child; I shall not fail!" Elizabeth walked away and left the girl crouching upon the floor, went to the glass and looked at herself. The rouge Elsie had rubbed on her cheeks burned there yet, making the deathly pallor of her face still more ghastly; her eyes gleamed out of the black shadows that circled them so full of agony and fear that she turned away with a shudder. Her hair had fallen loose, and streamed wildly about her shoulders. She bound it up again, arranged her dress and recommenced her restless walk. "Get up, Elsie," she said; "some one may come in." Elsie took refuge on her sofa, and sobbed herself into a sound slumber, while Elizabeth, in her haggard anxiety, moved up and down, wounded by cruel reflections which wrung her soul and left it dumb, with a passive submission, born rather of desperation than endurance. CHAPTER LVI. THE SECRET TELEGRAM. Elizabeth at last paused, and in her bitter anguish stood for minutes regarding Elsie as she lay asleep upon the sofa. She approached and bent over her. The girl had brushed her long fair curls back from her face, and they fell over the cushions in rich luxuriance, a feverish color was on her cheeks, lighting up her loveliness, and her whole appearance was so pretty, so singularly childlike, as she lay there, that it seemed impossible, even then, that she could have anything in common with the trouble that oppressed Elizabeth.