And he had to go, seizing his hat, hurrying out with an apology for staying till the last moment, while Nelly, trembling, terrified, shrank back into the room where a little fire was still burning, though the night was warm. She went back to it with the chill of exhausted nerves, and held out her hands to the smouldering glow, while nurse locked and bolted the hall door with unnecessary noise and commotion. Then that excellent woman once more put her head into the room with a look which Nelly could not meet. "Is there anything I can get for you, ma'am, before I go to bed?" she said. Nelly thanked her, hurriedly recalling her faculties. "How glad I am you came to warn Mr Fitzroy, nurse! I had told him, but he paid no attention. Gentlemen always think they can catch a train by a rush at the last moment." She felt that she was apologising to nurse, and was ashamed of doing so, though it was shame and uneasiness which had forced the words to her lips. Nurse did not commit herself to any approval or condonation of her mistress's behaviour. She said only "Yes, ma'am," and marched up-stairs with measured steps to bed. Nelly sat down on a low chair in front of the smouldering fire. She was trembling all over, scarcely able to command herself, her cheeks burning with the heat of excitement, yet her teeth chattering with a nervous chill, her strength almost completely broken down. Now that she was alone the tension of her nerves gave way: the light went out of her eyes, her heart seemed to suffocate her, struggling in her breast. The agitation of her whole being prostrated her physically as well as mentally. She lay back upon her chair, as if its support were necessary to hold her together, and then she bent forward, holding her trembling hands to the fire. Had the crisis come, not as she had expected, but in a form that she did not understand? or was this strange interrupted climax a mere break in the stream, no end at all, a broken thread to be taken up again to-morrow and to-morrow indefinitely? Nelly was not capable of forming these questions in her mind, but they swept through the whirlwind within her, with a horror and alarm which she did not understand and knew not how to explain. What had he said? Why had he said that and not something else? What had she done that he had looked at her so? No, she did not ask herself all this; these questions only went whirling about in the wild commotion of her soul. She did not know how long she sat thus, incapable of movement. The fire sank lower, and she felt, without knowing whence it came, a chill draught from her right hand where the window was, but took no notice, perceiving it only, not in a condition of mind to account for it. But Mrs Brunton suddenly sat up erect, and all that tempest stopped in a moment, at the sound of a footstep outside and a tap on the window. What was it? Oh, heaven! what was it? She suddenly remembered in a moment that the window had been