But the shriek and the fall had startled others. Four opposite doors flew open and four women rushed out of their rooms to see what was the matter and to behold Em. standing like a statue of Fear over the prostrate form of Malvina Warde. “In the name of Heaven, what does all this mean, Miss Palmer!” demanded Mrs. Bruce, stooping to examine the condition of her guest, while Mrs. Templeton, Hermia, and Belinda gathered around them. “She has fainted,” said Mrs. Templeton. The four women raised the unconscious form and laid it on the hall lounge. “How did this happen, Miss Palmer?” inquired Mrs. Bruce while they all began to use the common methods of reviving a swooning woman—bathing her head, beating her hands, and applying sal volatile to her nose. “Why don’t you answer, Miss Palmer?” demanded Mrs. Bruce without pausing in her efforts. “I—I don’t know,” stammered the frightened girl. “I had just run downstairs and turned around when I met this lady coming out of that door. We came on each other suddenly, and she stared and screamed and fell. I think she took me for a ghost.” “It is very strange,” said Mrs. Templeton; “but, then, Malvina has had heart disease for some years, and a little thing startles her.” “Do not be alarmed. Mamma is subject to these fainting fits,” said Belinda Warde; “lay her head quite low and she will soon recover.” They followed the daughter’s advice, and the mother gave signs of returning consciousness. “You had better go down, my dear. Since it was the sight of you that first startled her you had better not be one of the first objects that her eyes meet on opening,” said Mrs. Templeton. Gladly enough Em. left the circle and went downstairs. A feeling of repulsion had come over her at the sight of that woman for which she could in no way account. “It is strange, and unjust, and sinful,” said the girl to herself as she tripped downstairs. “That woman never did me any harm in all the days of my life! She never even knew me any more than I did her, and yet it is true that I feel such a loathing of her as I never felt for any living creature before. I must pray it away! It will not do! I will not have hatred in my heart—particularly such a wicked, unnatural, and unreasonable hatred as this. I will do that lady every kind service I possibly can, and I will try to overcome this sudden hatred of an inoffensive stranger.” In the lower hall she found Ronald Bruce, standing and staring upward. “What is the row upstairs? Was it a mouse, or a spider, or a candle moth that caused all that screaming and running?” he inquired. “Oh! Ronald, it was I,” said Em. compunctiously. “You! What did you do?” “Oh! I suppose I came running down the attic stairs too swiftly and too silently——” “Were you expected to creep down noisily, like an old cripple on crutches?” laughingly demanded the young man. “Nonsense, Ronald! You must know I glided down and met Mrs. Warde in the gloom, and she screamed and fainted.”