But none of her remedies had taken effect as yet. Nina still lay upon the floor, her beautiful, rigid face upturned to the light with no more signs of life upon it than if she had been a corpse. Kitty was silently weeping over her. “Oh, Miss Drusilla, I can’t bring her to. She is dead, surely,” she sobbed. “She was weak and faint. She told me that she had been ill a long time, and so she could not bear the shock of Lucy’s words. They have killed her, my poor young mistress.” “No, Kitty, I do not believe that she is dead. She is in a deep swoon, that is all. But we must do the best we can for her ourselves. We cannot call a doctor. You understand me, Kitty?” said Miss Drusilla, and in the dim light they looked at each other across the lifeless body with awed eyes. “You mean”--Kitty said, with a shudder. “That the horrible malice, the dying falsehoods of Sibyl St. Alban have ruined Nina’s life. Oh, what a wicked woman she must have been to die with a lie upon her lips to gratify her jealous malice! If it were known that Nina were alive, that she had come home to Selwyn Heights, she would be arrested for murder!” Was it only their fancy, or did a low laugh of horrible, unearthly, exultant malice echo through and through the room, seeming to come from the other side of the door? Kitty was a devout Catholic. She crossed herself when she heard it. “The saints preserve us!” she cried. “Did you hear the ghost laughing, Miss Drusilla?” “Kitty, you’re a fool! ’Twas nothing but the wind in the gables,” the lady cried, sharply, but she went quickly to the door and threw it wide open. “There’s nothing there,” she said, triumphantly, and Kitty did not know that she was shuddering in spite of her pretended bravado, and that that eerie, mocking laugh still rang in her ears. “Mind,” she continued, sharply, “don’t you tell the servants you fancied you heard something. They’ll be leaving the house in a body if you tell them any more ghost tales.” “I’ll not breathe a word to them, ma’am,” answered trembling, frightened Kitty. “And now let us do what we can for this poor, unhappy girl,” continued Miss Drusilla, calmly. “Let us take this tight dress off and put on her night-gown and lay her in bed. I think she is going to revive presently.” “The saints grant it,” prayed Kitty, and Miss Drusilla replied, rather bitterly: “Perhaps the saints would be in better business if they took her home to glory. Even if she lives what will she do with her blighted future? She will have to fly from justice, a poor, hunted creature! All the world believes her guilty of Mrs. St. Alban’s death!” And while she busied herself with tender assiduity to bring back the suspended life of the girl, she told herself that she was doing wrong, that Nina was better off dead than to awake to the doom that menaced her.