And afterwards, while Miss Conyers sat drinking tea, she poured into her ear the history of her strange meeting with Goldsborough in the hospital, and his tragic death. Much of this Britomarte had heard before, by letters from Erminie; but now she heard for the first time the full particulars of the affair. Elfie then talked of Erminie and her fatal devotion to the sufferers in the fever wards of the hospital, and the martyrdom in which that devotion was about to end. And at that point she burst into tears. “Take comfort,” said Miss Conyers. “I have watched her attentively for the last five or six hours. And friends and physicians may all be mistaken at last; and youth and constitution may eventually triumph.” “Well, I hope so; or rather I would hope if I could,” sighed Elfie, despondently. And then they talked of other matters. Elfie had her own theory, true or false, of Britomarte’s hidden life; and so she forbore to ask Miss Conyers any questions about her manner of existence. And indeed in a little while they returned to the sick room, where the beautiful Erminie still lay on her bed like a dead girl on her bier. The gentlemen went down stairs to their late and comfortless dinner; for meals were now very irregular in this house of woe. After dinner Dr. Sales went away. And that evening the watch for the night was arranged in this manner: Elfie, having been refreshed by her long afternoon’s nap, was to sit up from eight o’clock until two, and then she was to be relieved by Britomarte. Miss Conyers, being fatigued by her long journey, was to go to bed at eight o’clock, and rest until two, when she was to rise and relieve Elfie. Accordingly, at eight o’clock Britomarte retired; and Elfie having drank several large cups of strong green tea to keep herself wide awake, took her seat in the big easy chair near the head of Erminie’s bed. She had nothing to do but to think. She could neither read nor sew; for there was no light in the room but the dim taper that burnt upon the hearth. The whole house was very silent. The three gentlemen, Justin, Major Fielding, Captain Ethel, were reading, or trying to read, in the library below. The two servants, old Frederica and Catherine, her niece, were seated in their kitchen. And the one man servant, old Bob, was dozing in a sort of porter’s chair in the hall near the front door, to be easily within call. Elfie looked forward wearily, drearily to her six hours of lonely vigilance. Nothing but her love for Erminie could have borne through its solitude and tediousness. Even the first two hours, between eight and ten, when she had waking company in the house, seemed awful in solitude and interminable in tediousness. All was so silent that she heard the sound of the very first footfalls of the family preparing to retire, and it filled her with a strange, nervous sense of desolation and dread.