been remarkable, developed into the amaze of one who has seen a ghost face to face, while the skin round them was dry and burning, and darkened to a purplish brown. For hours and hours would she sit, like one inanimate, staring at that ghost which she only could behold, turning with a nervous start if a door or window were opened suddenly. Sometimes--but that was seldom--her surcharged heart found relief in tears; not soothing dew, but water which burned new furrows down her wasted cheek. It was evident that there was some awful weight upon her mind, which was growing heavier--was squeezing her life-blood out by drops. Doreen set herself to wonder what this could mean. It looked like the effort of an anguished soul to fly from memory and hoodwink remorse. Yet why should the punctiliously upright dowager be possessed by so dire a visitation? The old lady (really old now, though her years were but fifty-three) kept muttering to herself when she thought she was alone; then looked fiercely up, with glaring eyes like coals, from a suspicion that she might have betrayed something. Once her niece caught her in an excess of what seemed like madness--babbling some frantic words out loud through a thick silken kerchief which she held against her mouth. It was clear that there was some secret which was bursting to come out--that was devouring her piecemeal--and that she adopted this strange way of giving vent to it. Her sufferings must indeed be terrible, Miss Wolfe thought, if that marble pride was powerless to conceal them. No human frame may bear for long such wrenching. Either the stern countess must go raving mad, or else she would certainly soon die.