Standing at the top of the stairs, with her arms outstretched as if to prevent any one’s passing her on the way up, the gaunt creature seemed to be of gigantic height, and looked, with her loose, disordered hair and the rags which hung down from her arms instead of sleeves, like a witch in the throes of prophecy. “Stand back! Stand back! Leave her alone!” she cried furiously, as Bram rushed up the stairs, and struggled to get past her. She flung her arms round him, laughing discordantly, and clinging so tightly that without hurting her he would have found it impossible to disengage himself. “What has she done? What has she done?” asked Mr. Cornthwaite in a loud, hard, angry voice as he came to Bram’s assistance. At the first sound of Mr. Cornthwaite’s voice, Meg’s rage seemed suddenly to disappear, to give place to a fit of strange gloom, quite as wild, and still more terrible to see. Releasing Bram, who ran past her, she leaned over the banisters, and looked straight into Mr. Cornthwaite’s haggard face. “What has she done? What have I done?” said she in a horrible whisper. “Why, I’ve done the best night’s work that’s ever been done on this earth, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve sent the man and the woman I hated both to----. Ha! ha! ha!” With a shrieking laugh she leapt past him to the bottom of the stairs. CHAPTER XXV. MEG. Bram Elshaw heard Meg’s wild words as he rushed along the corridor towards the room out of which she had just come--Claire’s room, as he guessed, with a sob of terror rising in his throat. The door was open. On the floor, just inside, lay what Bram at first thought to be Claire’s lifeless body. Meg had dragged her off the bed, and flung her down in an ecstasy of mad rage. But even as he raised her in his arms, before the frightened Joan had run up to his aid, Bram was reassured. The girl was unconscious, but she was still breathing. Joan wanted to send him away. “Leave her to me, sir, leave her to me. You can goa and fetch t’ doctor back,” cried she, as she tried jealously to take Claire out of his arms. But Bram did not seem to hear her. He was staring into the unconscious face as if this was his last look on earth. He hung over her with all the agony of his long, faithful, unhappy love softening his own rugged face, and shining in his gray eyes. “Oh, Claire, Claire, my little Claire, my darling, are you going away? Are you going to die?” The words broke from his lips, hoarse, low, forced up from his heart. He did not know that he had uttered them; did not know that he was not alone with the sick girl. Joan, whose tears were running down her own face, suddenly broke into a loud sob, and shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Put her down; do ee put her down,” she said peremptorily. “Do ye go for to think as your calling to her will do her any good? Goa ee for t’ doctor. And God forgive me for speaking harsh to ye, sir.”