No adoring lover could have expressed more anxiety concerning the lady of his heart than did the gallant colonel for Miss Walsingham. He sent up a bulletin in the shape of John the footman every hour, to listen at the young lady's door whether she was moving--not to disturb her, only to listen, and bring back word to this anxious well-wisher. Thus passed the morning below stairs. How fared it with poor Margaret? Nature had suffered a complete collapse. The horror of the night was telling upon her pale, drawn face, her bloodless lips, and nerveless hands. Utter exhaustion was weighing her down. If her enemy had been making a bonfire of Castle Brand beneath her, profound exhaustion would have compelled her to lie there and doze, even while she perished in the flames. She lay in bed with half-closed eyes, tossing from side to side as the piercing light from the hole in the shutter worried her; dozing heavily, often waking to murmur some feverish thought, starting up and listening--sinking back in her weakness to sleep again. Toward the middle of the afternoon she roused herself, came to a completer sense of reality than she had done yet, and sprang from her bed. She had to sit for several minutes upon the side of it, with her hands tightly clasped upon her brow, before she could come to a decision as to what her next move could be. "I am mad to waste the few hours of grace in sleep, instead of putting myself, under the protection of my friends!" she said. "I must not lose another hour." She rang the bell, and began to dress herself as hurriedly as weakness would admit of. "Are you up, Miss Margaret, dear?" said the housekeeper, anxiously, from the hall. She unlocked the door, held it opened fearfully, and beckoned her to come in. The old lady's first look was at the girl's face, at which she gasped. Her next was at the window, from which a blinding ray and a cold current of air assailed her; at which she shrieked: "Lord ha' mercy! How came that there?" "Ask me nothing," shuddered Margaret. "I am going to have the affair sifted to the bottom." "But why didn't you raise the house? Wasn't it a burglar?" "No. I can tell you nothing about it until I have put myself under the protection of Mr. Davenport and the doctor." She spoke quite evenly, but there was a suspicious wildness about her eyes which struck a new vein in the prolific brain of the housekeeper. "Miss Margaret, deary! you didn't surely make that hole yourself?" Margaret burst into vehement laughter. Her brain was so tried and over-strained that a touch might turn it. To ask her if she had done it! And then, on the other hand, to think that Mrs. Chetwode should seem to be distrusting her sanity, like the others! Down came the tears in a rushing torrent! "My! She's in hysterics!" shrieked Mrs. Chetwode, catching the poor girl in her arms. "Don't, dear, don't!" shaking her vigorously. "Be quiet now, deary, love! Whisht! whisht!"