“Do tell me!” she ran on without waiting an answer. “_Didn’t_ you go with Mr. Libby because you hoped it might storm, and wished to take the same risk as Mrs. Maynard? I _told_ Mrs. Alger you did!” Grace flushed guiltily, and Miss Gleason cowered a little, perhaps interpreting the color as resentment. “I should consider that a very silly motive,” she said, helplessly ashamed that she was leaving the weight of the blow upon Miss Gleason’s shoulders instead of her own. “Of course,” said Miss Gleason enthusiastically, “you can’t confess it. But I _know_ you are capable of such a thing—of anything heroic! _Do_ forgive me,” she said, seizing Grace’s hand. She held it a moment, gazing with a devouring fondness into her face, which she stooped a little sidewise to peer up into. Then she quickly dropped her hand, and, whirling away, glided slimly out of the corridor. Grace softly opened Mrs. Maynard’s door, and the sick woman opened her eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said hoarsely, “but I had to pretend to be, or that woman would have killed me.” Grace went to her and felt her hands and her flushed forehead. “I am worse this evening,” said Mrs. Maynard. “Oh, no,” sighed the girl, dropping into a chair at the bedside, with her eyes fixed in a sort of fascination on the lurid face of the sick woman. “After getting me here,” continued Mrs. Maynard, in the same low, hoarse murmur, “you might at least stay with me a little. What kept you so long?” “The wind fell. We were becalmed.” “We were not becalmed the day _I_ went out with Mr. Libby. But perhaps nobody forced _you_ to go.” Having launched this dart, she closed her eyes again with something more like content than she had yet shown: it had an aim of which she could always be sure. “We have heard from Mr. Maynard,” said Grace humbly. “There was a despatch waiting for Mr. Libby at Leyden. He is on his way.” Mrs. Maynard betrayed no immediate effect of this other than to say, “He had better hurry,” and did not open her eyes. Grace went about the room with a leaden weight in every fibre, putting the place in order, and Mrs. Maynard did not speak again till she had finished. Then she said, “I want you to tell me just how bad Dr. Mulbridge thinks I am.” “He has never expressed any anxiety,” Grace began, with her inaptness at evasion. “Of course he hasn’t,” murmured the sick woman. “He isn’t a fool! What does he _say?_” This passed the sufferance even of remorse. “He says you mustn’t talk,” the girl flashed out. “And if you insist upon doing so, I will leave you, and send some one else to take care of you.”