On the evening of the fourth day, while Berenice lay exhausted upon the sofa of her bedroom, her maid entered the chamber saying: "Please, my lady, you remember the young woman that was here on Friday evening?" "Yes!" Berenice was up on her elbow in an instant, looking eagerly into the girl's face. "Your ladyship ordered me to make inquiries about her, but I could get no news except from the old man who took her home out of the snowstorm and who came back and said she was ill." "I know! I know! You told me that before. But you have heard something else. What is it?" "My lady, the old woman Dinah, who went to nurse her, never came back till to-day; that is the reason I couldn't hear any more news until to-night." "Well, well, well? Your news! Out with it, girl!" "My lady, she is dead and buried!" "Who?" "The young woman, my lady. She died on Saturday. She was buried to-day." Berenice sank back on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. So! her dangerous rival was gone; the poor unhappy girl was dead! Berenice was jealous, but pitiful. And she experienced in the same moment a sense of infinite relief and a feeling of the deepest compassion. Neither mistress nor maid spoke for several minutes. The latter was the first to break silence. "My lady!" "Well, Phoebe!" "There was something else I had to tell you." "What was it?" "The young woman left a child, my lady." "A child!" Again Berenice was up on her elbow, her eyes fixed upon the speaker and blazing with eager interest. "It is a boy, my lady; but they don't think it will live!" "A boy! He shall live! He is mine--my son! I will have him. Since his mother is dead, it is I who have the best right to him!" exclaimed the countess vehemently, rising to her feet. The maid recoiled--she thought her mistress had suddenly gone mad. "Phoebe," said the countess eagerly, "what is the hour?" "Nearly eleven, my lady." "Has it cleared off?" "No, my lady; it has come on to rain hard; it is pouring." The countess went to the windows of her room, but they were too closely shut and warmly curtained to give her any information as to the state of the weather without. Then she hurried impatiently into the passage where the one end window remained with its shutters still unclosed, and she looked out. The rain was lashing the glass with fury. She turned away and sought her own room again--complaining: "Oh, I can never go to-night! It is too late and too stormy! Mrs. Brudenell would think me crazy, and the woman at the hut would never let me have my son. Yet, oh! what would I not give to have him on my bosom to-night," said Berenice, pacing feverishly about the room. "My lady," said the maid uneasily, "I don't think you are well at all this evening. Won't you let me give you some salvolatile?" "No, I don't want any!" replied the countess, without stopping in her restless walk. "But, my lady, indeed you are not well!" persisted the affectionate creature.