She was back again in London in the forlorn room in Dorset street, and the rain was splashing against the windows just as it did that dreary day, and she heard the footsteps of the lodgers on the stairs and the roar of the great city, and fought again the battle for her child, and the iron hand came back and clutched her throat and strangled her until her face was purple and she writhed in the agonies of suffocation. Then, when the paroxysm was over she lay for hours in a swoon so nearly resembling death, that at last they thought her gone and the whisper that she was dead ran through the hall, down to the servants’ quarters, where it was told to Gertie Westbrooke, who had come to inquire for her. “No, no, not dead; oh, what shall I do?” Gertie cried, as with a low moan she sank down upon the grass by the door, and covering her face with her hands wept passionately. During the past year Edith and Gertie had met often by the grave which the child tended with so much care, and they had learned to know each other well. Together they had talked of French and music and the books which Gertie liked best and the flowers of which Gertie knew so much; and Edith had written to the white-haired old lady among the heather hills, and sent the roses Gertie had pressed. And when the answer came which had in it a blessing for “the bonny lassie who looks after my puir laddie’s grave,” Edith read it to Gertie as they sat under the shadow of the whispering pine which grew above the grave. And now all this had come to an end, and all the brightness of Gertie’s life seemed stricken out with the words: “Mrs. Schuyler is dead.” “And she so lovely and good,—and she liked me, too. Oh, I cannot bear it,—I cannot!” Gertie sobbed, just as a footstep came near. Looking up, she saw Emma, who, overhearing the words, and guessing at their meaning, said to her: “Gertie, she is not dead. She has revived a little and is breathing still, though the doctor thinks her dying.” “Not dead? Then there is hope! Oh, Miss Emma, may I just look at her? I’ll be so very quiet, and I loved her so much!” “Yes. I do not know as you can do any harm by looking at her,” Emma said, and in an instant Gertie was flying up the stairs and along the south hall which led to Edith’s room. The door was open, and looking in, she saw the white face upon the pillow, framed in masses of golden-brown hair, which the fair hands had torn and matted when the iron fingers were at the throat. She seemed to be dead, and the doctor touched her pulse to see if it still beat, when the lips said faintly: “Where’s my little girl?” The last word was prolonged, and to the excited child it sounded like “little Gertie,” and, without stopping to consider the consequences, Gertie darted across the floor to the side of the sick woman, whose lips she kissed, as she said: “I’m here! I’m here!”