“There is no occasion for you to remain; I will make all arrangements. The tie between us is severed: you and I are as dead to one another as the child is to us both. We have nothing now in common but a grave.” His grief and indignation left no room for pity. Incidents which take some time to describe, are occasionally almost instantaneous in action. It was barely five minutes since Madeline had entered the farmhouse, and become aware of her loss, and now she was looking with stony eyes upon the destruction of everything that in her inmost soul she valued. Her child had wound himself into her heart. He was dead; he had died in a stranger’s arms, neglected by his own mother. Laurence was also lost to her for ever! “Have you nothing to say?” he asked at last, as she still remained silent and immovable. She clutched the brass rail fiercely in her grasp; there was a desperate expression in her face. She looked like some guilty, undefended prisoner, standing at the bar of judgment. “Have you no feeling, no words--nothing?” Still she stared at him wildly--speechless. He scrutinized her sharply. Her lips were parched and open. There was acute suffering in her pallid face, and dazed, dilated eyes. And, before he had time to realize what was about to happen, she had fallen in a dead faint. Mrs. Holt was hastily summoned, and she was laid upon Mrs. Holt’s spare bed, whilst burnt feathers were applied to her nostrils; her hands were violently rubbed, and every old-fashioned remedy was exhausted. The farmer’s wife could scarcely contain her resentment against this young woman, who had not deserved to be the mother of her dead darling, especially as she took notice of the diamonds still glittering in her ears, and of her white silk stockings and satin shoes. These latter items outraged her sense of propriety even more than Madeline’s absence the previous night. She lifted up one of these dainty slippers from where it had fallen on the floor, as its owner was being carried to bed, and surveyed it indignantly. “It’s danced a good lot, this ’ere shoe! Look at the sole. Look at the satin, there; it’s frayed, and it was new last night, I’ll be bound! It’s a pretty little foot, though; but you need not fear for her, Mr. Wynne. It’s not grief as ails her as much as you think. _She_ never was one as had much _feeling_--it’s just dancing! She’s been on the floor the whole night, and she is just about done.” And, tossing the miserable tell-tale shoe indignantly to one side, she added, “It’s dancing--not grief!” When Madeline recovered consciousness, she could not at first remember where she was, but gradually the dreadful truth dawned upon her mind; yet, strange to say, she never shed one single tear.