The man, Muhammed or another, she did not allow herself to think out the matter further, was hanging over Rosamond’s inanimate form. Now he laid down the hand he held and bent his dark head to her breast. Baby flung one look of horror at the rigid upturned chin. "She’s dead!" she screamed. He raised himself abruptly, his countenance grey even under the bronze. "She is not dead," he answered her quickly, with a gesture that forbade her words, "but I have been too sudden with her, and Jani has been playing devil’s tricks with her drugs. Is there any brandy——?" He wheeled round as he spoke, for the door had opened and old Mary’s figure appeared. The Ancient House was now full of rumours. Old Mary’s blue eyes were fixed in a stare of uttermost ecstasy. Her trembling hands were lifted as if in invocation; all at once she stretched them out, with an inarticulate cry of exaltation. Then her voice faltered into homely accents: "My lamb!" she stammered. "Oh, Mary," said the man, and his tones rang with boyish note. "Mary dear, brandy! Mary, if you love me, quick." He sat down on the side of the bed chafing Rosamond’s fingers. Silently Aspasia held up a bottle of essence, taken from the dressing-table. He nodded, and she began to lave her aunt’s temples, not daring to let her thoughts or eyes rest on the waxen face, on the ominous air of irrevocable repose about the long relaxed figure. She wished the silent lips did not wear that mysterious smile. Determinedly arresting her mind on those strong words: "She is not dead," she felt that so long as she could hold this confidence it would help to keep the dread angel at bay. "I was too sudden with her," said the man again, "but when I heard her call me, I think I went mad—I had waited so long!" Then it seemed to Aspasia that, from the first moment since he had spoken to her in the passage to-night, she had known him. "You are Harry English," she said. And saying this, she began to cry. She looked down at the piteous fixed smile. He had waited so long! Was it not now too late? "Oh," she said aloud, sobbing, "is it now not too late?" Then he flung himself on his knees beside the bed, and she drew back, for none should come between them. He gathered the inanimate form into his arms; his lips were close to the deaf ear, and he was speaking into it. "Rosamond, my wife, Rosamond, I have come back to you—come back to me. Rosamond, beloved!" The room was suddenly full of people. Was it possible, Aspasia asked herself, that between that cry of Rosamond and this gathering of the inmates of the house so short a time had lapsed. She felt as if she had lived a span of years. "My goodness," cried Lady Aspasia. "Who was screaming? Any one hurt? I never heard such a scream in my life!" Then speech and movement alike left the eager lady. Gazing at the bed, she stood open-mouthed with stupefaction—an odious inclination to laugh barely stifled, for decency’s sake, in her throat.