Dr. Rider took the half-insensible form up in his arms and carried her to the bedside, where Susan still lay motionless with her eyes wide open, in an awful abstraction and unconsciousness. He put Mrs. Vincent tenderly into the chair, and held the hands that shook with that palsied irrestrainable tremor. "No one can bring her to life but you," said the doctor, turning the face of the miserable mother towards her child. "She has kept her senses till she reached you; when she was here she no longer wanted them; she has left her life in your hands." He held those hands fast as he spoke; pressed them gently, but firmly; repeated his words over again. "In your hands," said the doctor once more, struck to his heart with horror and pity. Susan's bare beautiful arm lay on the coverlid, white, round, and full, like marble. The doctor, who had never seen the fair Saxon girl who was Mrs. Vincent's daughter a week ago, thought in his heart that this full developed form and face, rapt to grandeur by the extremity of woe, gave no contradiction to the accusation he had just heard with so much horror. That week had obliterated Susan's soft girlish innocence and the simplicity of her eighteen years. She was a grand form as she lay there upon that bed--might have loved to desperation--fallen--killed. Unconsciously he uttered aloud the thought in his heart--"Perhaps it would be better she should die!" Then the mother rose. Once more her painful senses came back to the woman who was still the minister's mother, and, even in this hideous dream of misery, had not forgotten the habits of her life. "When my son comes he will settle it all," said Mrs. Vincent. "I expect him--any time--he may come any minute. Some one has made--a mistake. I don't know what that man said; but he has made--a mistake, doctor. My son, Mr. Vincent, will see to all that. It has nothing to do with us. Tell me what we are to do for my child. Cut off her hair? Oh, yes, yes, anything! I don't mind it, though it is a sacrifice. She has had--a--a great fright, doctor. She could not tell me particulars. When her brother comes home, we will hear all--" said the widow, looking with a jealous gaze in his eyes to see if he believed her. The scene altogether overcame Dr. Rider. He turned away and went to the other side of the room, and took a glass of water from the table before he could answer her or meet that appeal. Then he soothed her as he best could with directions about Susan. He went away immediately to come back in an hour, if perhaps there might be any change--so he said; but, in reality, he wanted to escape, to hear this dreadful story, to think what was best. Friendless, with nobody near to protect them, and the officer of justice waiting at the door, what were these women to do? perhaps death waited closer than the visible messenger of fate. Would it be well to stay that more merciful executioner on his way?