Covering her a little more closely and dropping the shade so that the light should not disturb her, she stole softly out, leaving the wretched woman alone with herself. She was not asleep, and clenching her hands together so that the nails left their impress in her flesh, she whispered: “Dead! Frederick Hetherton dead! and does that release me from my vow? Do I wish to be released? No, oh, no, a thousand times no! And yet when she was talking to me I felt as if I must scream it out. Oh, Margery; oh, my daughter, my daughter! _Dead!_ And will his face haunt me as hers has—the sweet face of her who trusted me so? There surely is a hell, and I have been in it this many a year! Margery! Margery!” “Did you call me, mother? I thought I heard my name,” Margery said, opening the door and looking into the room. “No, no; go away. You waken me when I want to sleep,” Mrs. La Rue said almost angrily, for the sight of that beautiful young face, and the sound of that voice nearly made her mad; so Margery went away again, and left her mother alone to fight the demon of remorse, which the news of Frederick Hetherton’s death had aroused within her. CHAPTER XVIII. OLD LETTERS. Reinette was up and at her window on the morning when Phil left Merrivale, and had his seat been on the opposite side of the car from what it was, and had his powers of vision been long enough, and strong enough, he might have seen a pair of little white plump hands waving kisses and goodbyes to him as the train shot under the bridge, round the curve, and off into the swamps and plains of East Merrivale. “I shall miss him so much,” Reinette thought. “He is just the nicest kind of a boy cousin a girl ever had. We can go all lengths without the slightest danger of falling in love, for that would be impossible. Falling in love means getting married, and I have been educated too much like a Roman Catholic ever to marry my cousin. I would as soon marry my brother if I had one. I think it wicked, disgusting! So, Mr. Phil, I am going to have just the best time flirting with you that ever a girl had. But what shall I do while you are gone? Mr. Beresford is nice, but I can’t flirt with him. He is too old and dignified, and has such a way of looking you down.” This mental allusion to Mr. Beresford reminded Reinette that he was to come that day for any papers of her father’s which she had in her possession, and that she must look them over first. Ringing for Pierre, she bade him bring her the small black trunk or box in which her father’s private papers were kept. Pierre obeyed, and was about leaving the room when Reinette bade him bring a lighted lamp and set it upon the hearth of the open fire-place. “I may wish to burn some of them,” she said.