upon her head, a comforting word, had charmed away every spectre again and again. Perhaps Rosalind thought she would have the courage to speak all out, perhaps to have her doubts set at rest forever; but even if she had not courage for that, the mere sight of Mrs. Trevanion was enough to dispel all prejudices, to make an end of all doubts. It was quite dark in the passages as she flitted across the large opening of the stairs. Down-stairs in the great hall there was a spark of light, where a housemaid, kneeling within the great chimney, was lighting the fire. There was a certain relief even in this, in the feeling of a new day and life begun again. Rosalind glided like a ghost, in her warm dressing-gown, to Mrs. Trevanion’s door. She knocked softly, but there was no reply. Little wonder, at this hour of the morning; no doubt the mother was asleep. Rosalind opened the door. There is a kind of horror of which it is difficult to give any description in the sensations of one who goes into a room expecting to find a sleeper in the safety and calm of natural repose and finds it empty, cold, and vacant. The shock is extraordinary. The certainty that the inhabitant must be there is so profound, and in a moment is replaced by an uncertainty which nothing can equal--a wild dread that fears it knows not what, but always the worst that can be feared. Rosalind went in with the soft yet confident step of a child, who knows that the mother will wake at a touch, almost at a look, and turn with a smile and a kiss to listen, whatever the story that is brought to her may be. Fuller confidence never was. She did not even look before going straight to the bedside. She had, indeed, knelt down there before she found out. Then she sprang to her feet again with the cry of one who had touched death unawares. It was like death to her, the touch of the cold, smooth linen, all folded as it had been in preparation for the inmate--who was to sleep there no more. She looked round the room as if asking an answer from every corner. “Mother, where are you? Mother! Where are you, mother?” she cried, with a wild voice of astonishment and dismay.