The hovering night fell rainy, dark, and cheerless. The skillful physician worked steadily, anxiously, and patiently, trying to save from the grasp of the fell destroyer the writhing victim of Elinor Glenalvan's deadly hate and wicked revenge. Everyone was filled with grief and sorrow. All warring passions, all human resentments were forgotten in the anxiety with which they watched the wavering balance in which Bertram Chesleigh lay fluctuating between life and death. Arsenic had been administered to him in a draught of wine, declared the physician, and the wonder arose who had given it to him. Someone started the theory that he had taken it himself, with intent to commit suicide. Then they searched him, but not a grain of the deadly drug was discovered on his person. It was all a baffling mystery. They had left him mourning despairingly over little Golden's grave, and they had seen him no more until he had come to them in this awful condition. "If I had not come in at the moment I did, no earthly power could have saved him," declared the physician; "As it is, I hope--mind, I only say hope--that I may save his life." At midnight Gertrude stole to the outer door for a breath of fresh air. She felt faint, weary and dispirited. The death of Golden, whom she had learned to love very deeply, had deeply grieved her saddened heart. "Poor child," she moaned, sitting down on the marble steps and gazing sadly at the silver crescent of the young moon as it struggled through a bank of clouds; "she has had a fate as tragic and sad as her poor young mother's." The sound of muffled footsteps on the grass caused Gertrude to start up with a sudden cry. A youth was coming toward her, and his low, entreating "stay, madam," arrested her contemplated flight. He came close to her side, and as his rough garments brushed the stone ballustrade, the cool, moist smell of newly thrown up earth came distinctly to her senses. She shivered and thought of that new-made grave lying in the silence and calm of the dewy night. "Will you tell me if Mr. Chesleigh is here, ma'am?" he inquired, respectfully. "Yes, he is here. What can you want of Mr. Chesleigh at this unseemly hour of the night?" she inquired, in wonder. "I have important business with him," said the youth, and Gertrude thought she detected a trembling, as of fear, in his voice. "Can I see him a moment, if you please?" "No, you cannot, for he is ill and unconscious, and we fear that he is dying," she replied. A smothered exclamation escaped from the youth's lips. "Oh, this is dreadful!" he said, as if unconscious of having a listener. "What shall we do now?" "Can I help you?" asked Gertrude, gently. He bent toward her eagerly. "Oh, madam, you are a friend of the poor lady that was buried this afternoon?" he said, almost fearfully. "Yes," she answered, with a quickened heart-beat. "Then come with me, for God's sake. There is not a minute to lose. Don't be afraid. No harm shall come to you."