"If I wasn't almost sure what you are going to say to Mr. Fanning, I would let you go," said Jane, "but you ought to know--your mother was very ill, worse than I have ever seen her before, last night." "Mother ill in the night, and you never told me!" The greater trouble seemed to swallow up the lesser, and for the time I forgot Mr. Fanning, the man in possession, and everything in the world except mother herself. "She had a sharp attack," continued Jane, "rigors and extreme weakness. I happened most fortunately to go into her room about midnight, and found her in an alarming state. Dr. Anderson was summoned. She is better, much better, but not up yet." "But, Jane, why, why did you not wake me?" "I should, dear, if there had been real danger, but she quickly recovered. You looked so ill yourself last night, that I had not the heart to disturb your sleep. And there is no danger at present, no fresh danger, that is. Unless something happens to cause her a sudden shock, she is comparatively well, but it behoves you, Westenra, to be careful." "And suppose I am not careful," I said, a sudden defiance coming into my voice. "In that case----" said Miss Mullins. She did not finish her sentence. She looked full at me, raised her hands expressively, and let them fall to her sides. Nothing could be more full of meaning than her broken sentence, her action, and the expression of her face. "But you could not deliberately do it," she said slowly, "you could not expose a mother like yours to----" "Of course I could do nothing to injure mother," I said, "I will try and be patient; but Jane, Jane, do you know really what this means? Can you not guess that there are things that even for a mother, a dying mother, a girl ought not to do?" "I do not see that," answered Jane deliberately; "no, I do not, not from your point of view. You can do what is required, and you can bear it." I knew quite well what she meant. She did not call me back this time when I left the room. I heard her mutter to herself--her words startled me--putting a new sort of sudden light on all our miserable affairs. "My little home gone too," I heard her mutter, "ruin for me too, for me too."