"Thinking what?" spoke Charlotte Delves, for Jemima had made a sudden pause. "Nothing particular, Miss Delves. Only that something which had happened in the day was odd," added Jemima, glancing significantly at me. "The master was in his room half undressed, and he came rushing after me, just as he was. The minute he looked on her he murmured that she was dying, and sent off a man for Mr. Lowe, and another for the old doctor from Nettleby. Lowe came at once, but the other did not get here till it was over. She died at two." Jemima would have enlarged on the details for ever. I felt sick as I listened. Even now, as I write, a sort of sickness comes over me with the remembrance. I wandered into the hall, and was sobbing with my head against the dining-room door-post, not knowing any one was there, when Mr. Edwin Barley gently unlatched the door and looked out. He had been weeping, as was easy to be seen. His eyes were red—his air and manner subdued; but my acquired fear of him was in full force, and I would rather have gone away than been drawn in. "Child, don't cry so." "I never took leave of her, sir. I did not see her before she died." "If weeping tears of blood would bring her back to life, she'd be here again," he responded, almost fiercely. "They have killed her between them; they have, Anne; and, by heavens! if there was any law to touch them, they should feel it." "Who, sir?" "The doctors. And precious doctors they have proved themselves! Why do you tremble so, child? They have not understood the disorder from the first: it is one requiring the utmost possible help from stimulants; otherwise the system cannot battle with it. They gave her none; they kept her upon water, and—she is lying there. Oh! that I had done as it perpetually crossed my mind to do!" he continued, clasping his hands together in anguish; "that I had taken her treatment upon myself, risking the responsibility! She would have been living now!" If ever a man spoke the genuine sentiments of his heart, Mr. Edwin Barley appeared to do so then, and a little bit of my dislike of him subsided—just a shade of it. "I am sorry you should have come into the house at this time, my poor child; some spell seems to have been upon it ever since. Go now to Charlotte Delves; tell her I say she is to take good care of you." He shut himself in again as I went away. Oh, the restless day! the miserable day! That, and the one of mamma's death, remain still upon my memory as the two sad epochs of my life, standing out conspicuously in their bitterness. Moving about the house restlessly; shedding tears by turns; leaning my head on the sofa in Miss Delves's parlour! She was very kind to me; but what was any kindness to me then? It seemed to me that I could never, never be happy again. I had so loved Selina!