Marguerite sat on the bedside exactly as she had come from the carriage, save that a white gossamer web had dropped from her head and shoulders, and lay coiled about her waist. Her tearless eyes were wide and filled with painful meditation, even when she turned to the alarmed and astonished girl before her. With suppressed exclamations of wonder and pity the girl glided forward, cast her arms about the sitting figure, and pleaded for explanation. "It is a headache," said Marguerite, kindly but firmly lifting away the intwining arms.--"No, no, you can do nothing.--It is a headache.--Yes, I will go to bed presently; you go to yours.--No, no"-- The night-robed girl looked for a moment more into Marguerite's eyes, then sank to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Marguerite laid her hands upon the bowed head and looked down with dry eyes. "No," she presently said again, "it is a headache. Go back to your bed.--No, there is nothing to tell; only I have been very, very foolish and very, very selfish, and I am going home to-morrow. Good-night." The door closed softly between the two. Then Marguerite sank slowly back upon the bed, closed her eyes, and rocking her head from side to side, said again and again, in moans that scarcely left the lips: "My mother! my mother! Take me back! Oh! take me back, my mother! my mother!" At length she arose, put off her attire, lay down to rest, and, even while she was charging sleep with being a thousand leagues away--slept. When she awoke, the wide, bright morning filled all the room. Had some sound wakened her? Yes, a soft tapping came again upon her door. She lay still. It sounded once more. For all its softness, it seemed nervous and eager. A low voice came with it: "Marguerite!" She sprang from her pillow.--"Yes!" While she answered, it came again,-- "Marguerite!" With a low cry, she cast away the bed-coverings, threw back the white mosquito-curtain and the dark masses of her hair, and started up, lifted and opened her arms, cried again, but with joy, "My mother! my mother!" and clasped Zosephine to her bosom. CHAPTER VIII. THE SHAKING PRAIRIE. Manifestly it was a generous overstatement for Claude's professional friend to say that Claude had outgrown his service. It was true only that by and by there had come a juncture in his affairs where he could not, without injustice to others, make a place for Claude which he could advise Claude to accept, and they had parted with the mutual hope that the separation would be transient. But the surveyor could not but say to himself that such incidents, happening while we are still young, are apt to be turning-points in our lives, if our lives are going to have direction and movement of their own at all.