Again the door opened, and again I heard the cat-like step, and felt the velvet touch that sent a shiver through me; and then succeeded a throbbing pain in my temples, dull aching in every limb, a high fever coursing through every vein, and I lived over again in delirium the scenes from which I had just escaped. Again I was lying beneath the roaring forest trees; again the sharp throes of mortal terror wrung from me the cry that I had uttered then, this time to be soothed by a tender and familiar voice; then restless with pain, and burning with fever, only pacified from that dream to be hurried off into another, wilder and more terrible. With glaring eyes and demoniac faces, the crowd of men, with Michael at their head, were in mad pursuit of a flying horse and rider; with hideous jeers and yells they urge them on, and closing round the frantic steed, they tear me, clinging round her, from Madge's neck, and holding me down upon the ground, wrench from my arm the bracelet, that resists, at first, their strongest efforts, till the warm blood flows, and the torn flesh quivers, as staggering back, a ruffian lifts the bloody prize, and with a wild cry I wake, only to drop into another broken slumber, and to dream another hideous dream. This time it is Mrs. Roberts, who, with rigid, cruel face, holds me down, and binding my powerless hands, thrusts me, struggling and frantic, into the dread, mysterious darkness of _that room_. And choking with terror, the agony is dispelled by the low voice that says, "What is it now, poor child?" and panting with fright, I cling to the hand that soothes me, and only from its steady grasp gain anything like peace. And so the night wears on. How much of these wild dreams revealed themselves in speech I know not, and how much of the history of that night belongs to fact, and how much to fancy, it is beyond me to decide. CHAPTER XI. "Oh! what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" SCOTT. Emerging from this sea of dreams tumultuous, I seemed, on a certain cold, grey morning, to be stranded on the shores of reality by an ebbing tide of water gruel and weak tea. Having, from my extreme youth, entertained undisguised aversion to these articles of food, I had steadily refused to let a spoonful pass my lips; consequently, my nurse and doctor not having relinquished a hope that in time I would come to terms, many separate editions of these invigorating compounds stood upon the table by my bed, in bowls of larger growth, in teacups and saucers, and every variety of earthen and china vessels, all covered and arranged with consummate care and skill.