"You alarm me," exclaimed Alice. "What can it be?" "I can only suppose that her nerves are overwrought with all these follies she is plunged into. It is nothing but turmoil and excitement; turmoil and excitement from day to day. I was a fool to come here again this year, and that's the truth." "Selina had always led so very quiet a life," murmured Alice. "Of course she had; and it has been a wonderful change for her; enough to upset the nervous system of a delicate woman. Selina has not been too strong since she had that fever." "She ought to keep more quiet." "She ought; but she will not. Before we came up I told her she must not do as she did last year; and I thought she did not mean to. Alice, she is mad after these gay frivolities; worse than she was last summer, I do believe--and that need not be. I wished not to come; I told Selina why--the expense, and other reasons--but she would. She would, Alice. I wonder what it is that chains her mind to this Babel of a city. I hate it. Go you in and see her, Alice. I can't stay now, for I have an appointment." Mrs. Dalrymple was in her bedroom when Alice entered, dressed, and waiting to go out: dressed with an elegance regardless of expense. "Good gracious, child, is it you!" she exclaimed. When the first moments had passed, Alice sat down and looked at her sister: her cheek was thin, and its bloom told more of hectic than of health. "Selina!" exclaimed Alice, "what is the matter? You are much altered." "Am I? People do alter. You are altered. You look ill." "Not more so than usual," replied Alice. "I grow weaker with time But you are ill: I can see it. You look as if you had something preying on your mind." "Nonsense, Alice. You are fanciful." "What is it?" persisted Alice. "If I have, your knowing it would do me no good, and would worry you. And yet," added Mrs. Dalrymple, "I think I will tell you. I have felt lately, Alice, that I must tell some one!" Alice laid gentle hold of her. "Let us sit down on the sofa, as we used to sit together at the Grange, when we were really sisters. But, Selina, if you have wanted a confidant in any grief, who so fitted to be that as your husband?" "He!" cried Selina--"_he!_ It is the dread of his knowing it--the anxiety I am in, daily and hourly, to keep it from him--that is wearing me out. Sometimes I say to myself, 'What if I put an end to it all, as Robert did?'" Alice was accustomed to the random figures of speech her sister was at moments given to using; nevertheless her heart stood still. "What is it that you have done, Selina?" "Ruined Oscar." "Ruined Oscar!" "And ruined myself, with him," added Selina, in reckless tones, as she took off her bonnet with a jerk, and let it lie in her lap. "I have contracted debts that neither he nor I can pay, thousands upon thousands; and the worry of it, the constant fear is rendering my life a--I will not _say_ what--upon earth." "Debts! thousands upon thousands!" confusedly uttered Alice.