Mary heard and came with exclamations of terror and sympathy. They got her between them to the fire, and chafed her chill hands and feet. Nobody knew how she had got in, where she had come from; no one was with her--no one had admitted her. She sat a marble woman in the chair where they had placed her, unresistant, only gazing, gazing--turning her awful eyes after her mother. At last she drew some long gasping breaths, and, with a shudder which shook her entire frame, seemed to come to herself. "I am Susan Vincent," said the awful ghost. No tears, nor cries, nor wild pressure of her mother's arms, nor entreaties poured into her cold ear, could extract any other words. Mrs. Vincent lost her self-possession: she rushed out of the room for remedies--rung the bell--called for Arthur in a voice of despair--could nobody help her, even in this horrible crisis? When she had roused the house she recollected herself, and shut the door upon the wondering strangers, and returned once more to her hopeless task. "Oh, Mary! what are we to do? Oh, Susan, my child, my darling! speak to your poor mother," cried the widow; but the marble figure in the chair, which was Susan, made no reply. It began to shiver with dreadful trembling fits--to be convulsed with long gasping sobs. "I am--Susan--Susan Vincent"--it said at intervals, with a pitiful iteration. The sight of her daughter in this frightful condition, coming after all her fatigue and strain of excitement, unnerved Mrs. Vincent completely. She had locked the door in her sudden dismay. She was kneeling, clasping Susan's knees--wasting vain adjurations upon her--driven beyond hope, beyond sense, beyond capacity. Little rustic Mary had all the weight of the emergency thrown upon her shoulders. It was she who called to the curious landlady outside to send for the doctor, and who managed to get Susan put into her mother's bed. When they had succeeded in laying her down there, a long interval, that seemed like years, passed before Dr. Rider came. The bed was opposite the window, through which the pale rays of the twilight were still trembling. The candle on the other side showed Mrs. Vincent walking about the room wringing her hands, now and then coming to the bedside to look at the unconscious form there, rent by those gasping sobs, uttering those dreadful words. Mary stood crying at the foot of the bed. As for the widow, her eyes were tearless--her heart in an intolerable fever of suffering. She could not bear it. She said aloud she could not bear it--she could not bear it! Then she returned again to call vainly upon her child, her child! Her strength had given way--she had spent all her reserves, and had nothing to resist this unexpected climax of misery.