up in a madhouse, he who never would have hurt a fly, shut up--shut up! Mary’s thoughts had run away with her, had made her forget for a moment what was her chief object, her only object. The start she gave, when a new and alarming idea thus came into her mind, brought her back to herself. She had drifted towards that wondering suspicion, that undefined alarm on the evening before, after Bessie’s revelation, and Mrs. Mills’ evident desire to stave off all further questions. Who was the invalid gentleman? she had asked with an awakening of curiosity, of interest, and wonder. But the housekeeper and the doctor had been called most opportunely away, and she had got no answer to a question. She started when it came back thus in sudden overwhelming force. But the very keenness of the question, which felt almost like a discovery, brought her back to herself with a guilty sensation, as if she had forgotten Hetty in thus following out another train of thought. And what was all the world in comparison with Hetty, whose well-being now hung in the balance, and whom perhaps her mother, dreaming and thinking of others, might miss the moment to save? She recovered herself in an instant, and brought herself back with all her mind concentrated upon her child. Hetty lay still as in depths of sleep; but from time to time her eyes were opened, though only to close again, and the sight of those open eyes chilled the mother through and through, and drove everything else out of her mind. It was now the most ghostly depth of night, the darkest and the coldest, when morning seems to begin to wake with a chill and shiver. Hetty’s eyes had closed again, and Mrs. Asquith had resumed her seat to watch, with a nervous anticipation of the crisis--when presently the bed shook with the nervous shuddering of the little form that lay on it; and starting up, she found Hetty with her eyes wide open, an agonised look upon her face, and her hands clutching the bedclothes, as had been described to her. The mother’s dress brushing the bed as she rose hastily, seemed to increase the dreamer’s horror. She began to move from side to side, moaning as in a nightmare, struggling to rise. And then a babble of broken words came to her lips. What was she saying? Mrs. Asquith listened with keen anguish, her faculties sharpened to their utmost strain. Was it some explanation, some complaint, that Hetty was trying to utter, something that would make this mystery clear? Her mother made out that it was the same thing over and over, now more now less clear. Her ears made out the words at last by dint of repetition--Heaven knows, the most innocent words!--“My child, my little darling! my child, my little darling! have I found you at last?”