He seemed so like her absent Denzil, that all her heart yearned to him, and in a genuine transport of gratitude she embraced him with such _empressement_, that in a woman so young apparently for her maternal character, and so very handsome too, rather perplexed Trevelyan, who said, "You owe me no thanks--indeed, indeed, you do not. I did but my duty--I obeyed only the dictates of humanity; and I assure you that you are quite as much indebted to Rajah as to me, Mrs. Devereaux." The name he used recalled her to herself, and the peculiarity of her position as regarded him--the secret she could not yet reveal; and turning away as an expression of confusion come over her face, she stooped, and casting her arms round the great Thibet mastiff, caressed it with a grace and playfulness that partook of girlish glee. By this time Sybil was reclining wearily, and with an air of utter exhaustion and languor, on a sofa. Her face was very pale, save when a kind of hectic flush passed over it, and her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. Even to the unpractised observation of the two gentlemen it was evident that they had better retire, and, after exchanging a glance suggestive of this, they both rose, hat in hand. "You will, I hope, permit me to call to-morrow and make inquiries?" said Audley Trevelyan. Constance bowed, and her tongue trembled: what she said she scarcely knew, but it was a muttered wish of some kind, with many thanks and reference to her husband's return, all oddly combined. That she laboured under some species of hidden restraint was quite apparent to the perception of him she addressed, and also to the General; and so, after the usual well-bred wishes that both ladies should soon recover from the effects of their recent terror, they withdrew together; and as the sound of their carriage wheels died away in the willow avenue, all other sounds, and the light too, seemed to pass away from Sybil, as she sank gradually back, became insensible, and was conveyed to bed by Winny Braddon and her startled mother, who summoned medical aid without delay. The next day found her in a species of nervous fever. She had undergone too much of mental fear and bodily suffering for a nature so delicate as hers, and remained for a time unconscious of all around her. Slowly and gradually, like water filtering through a rock--as some one describes the struggles of returning sensibility--she became aware that she was in her own bed, with her mother on one side and Winny Braddon on the other in watchful attendance; then, with a shudder, she would recall the horrors she had escaped, and clasp her hands as she had done ten years before, when a little child in prayer.