She never undressed, or even lay down on her bed. Part of the cruel night she spent in sitting on a chair by the wall, staring with blank eyes into the darkness, and repressing, half mechanically, the moans that rose to her lips. Another portion of her vigil was consumed in a restless wandering to and fro. Her chamber was over the empty parlour. No one would hear or heed her footsteps. At last, finding the darkness unbearable, she struck a match, and lighted two candles which stood on the dressing-table, and gazed about the room. It was her own bedroom that she was in, and the bed, beside which she sat, was the bed in which Ada Dixon had slept—the same Ada Dixon who had felt indignant and insulted when her plain-spoken lover had told her that no honest girl required notice from her superiors. How very angry she had been when he said it. At this recollection she held her hands before her mouth to stifle a shriek. In this room, before that looking-glass, how many hours had she spent, trying the effect of this, that, or the other piece of finery; endeavouring to model her bonnets, her hats, her mantles, and her gowns upon those of her patroness, Magdalen Wynter? In that desk, standing upon the little round table in the corner, how many notes might be reposing, indited by Otho Askam? Notes slipped into her hand under Magdalen’s very eyes, when he had met her at Balder Hall; behind her unsuspecting father’s back, when she happened to be in the shop. Notes containing at first nothing but a rather heavy style of compliment, adapted to a taste not over-fastidious in such matters; tragic effusions, when read by the light of this present; ponderously comic, if viewed critically on their intrinsic merits as compositions. When had it first seriously occurred to her that she might become Mrs. Askam, of Thorsgarth? Why, on that night, a hundred years ago, when there had been a grand concert, at which she had sung—when Miss Wynter had been flouted, and Ada flattered and complimented. That was the night Roger had come in in such a fury, and carried her away. Roger—Roger—her thoughts wandered—who was Roger, and what had he to do with her? They were engaged to be married once—now—yet——Yes, and in November he was to come and see her.