She breaks open the paper, and, smiling still, daintily unfolds the enclosure. What a few words!--two or three strokes of the pen. Yet what a change they make in the beautiful, _debonnaire_ countenance! Black as ink they stand out beneath her stricken eyes. Oh, cruel hand that penned them so abruptly! "Come home at once. Make no delay. Your brother is dead." Gray as death grows her face; her body turns to stone. So altered is she in this brief space, that when she raises her head some shrink away from her, and some cry out. "Oh, Molly! what is it?" asks Lady Stafford, panic-stricken, seizing her by the arm; while Luttrell, scarcely less white than the girl herself, comes unconsciously forward. Molly's arms fall to her sides; the telegram flutters to the floor. "My brother is dead," she says, in a slow, unmeaning tone. "He is dead," she says again, in a rather higher, shriller voice, receiving no response from the awed group that surrounds her. Their silence evidently puzzles her. Her large eyes wander helplessly over all their faces, until at length they fall on Luttrell's. Here they rest, knowing she has found one that loves her. "Teddy--Teddy!" she cries, in an agonized tone of desolation; then, throwing up her arms wildly toward heaven, as though imploring pity, she falls forward senseless into his outstretched arms. * * * * * All through the night Cecil Stafford stays with her, soothing and caressing her as best she can. But all her soothing and caressing falls on barren soil. Up and down the room throughout the weary hours walks Molly, praying, longing for the daylight; asking impatiently every now and then if it "will never come." Surely on earth there is no greater cross to bear than the passive one of waiting when distress and love call loudly for assistance. Her eyes are dry and tearless; her whole body burns like fire with a dull and throbbing heat. She is composed but restless. "Will it soon be day?" she asks Cecil, almost every half hour, with a fierce impatience,--her entire being full of but one idea, which is to reach her home as soon as possible. And again: "If I had not fainted I might have been there now. Why did I miss that train? Why did you let me faint?" In vain Cecil strives to comfort; no thought comes to her but a mad craving for the busy day. At last it comes, slowly, sweetly. The gray dawn deepens into rose, the sun flings abroad its young and chilly beams upon the earth. It is the opening of a glorious morn. How often have we noticed in our hours of direst grief how it is then Nature chooses to deck herself in all her fairest and best, as though to mock us with the very gayety and splendor of her charms!