“Ismay can be consoled by Mark.” Yet at the thought his forehead was wet. He would have given his soul not to have seen her to-night, to have gone on believing in her; as he would never believe in any one again. And yet it had all been so simple; if fate had not played into the spiteful hands of Cristiane le Marchant, would have been another link to bind him to the girl who for his sake was fighting with the world against her. At eight o’clock Ismay had waked from a long sleep; waked weary and languid in body, but with her brain more quick and clear than it had been for two days. She was alone, and she lay for a little, thinking, remembering. What had made her so drowsy, so strange all that day? Had Wray, to keep her out of the way, given her anything? “There was only breakfast, he couldn’t!” she reflected. “We all had the same, even my coffee Thomas poured out at the sideboard. Besides, he doesn’t suspect me at all, thanks to Thomas’ version of my midnight promenades.” She smiled to herself. Had not Thomas met her face to face one night, and had not Jessie told her in deepest secrecy of how the lady had walked, with the very blood-stain that was the mark of her crimes on her breast! That blood-stain she had made in sewing her ghost’s gown, with fingers that were torn by Cylmer’s roses. “Jessie.” Conviction flashed over her at the woman’s name. Jessie had put her early tea down outside the door this morning. Ismay was sleepy and too lazy to get up and let the woman in. “I said to leave it, and I heard her go away,” she thought. “When I took it in it was cold, and I thought it wasn’t nice, but I drank it. He had plenty of time to put anything in it. If he passed and saw it there he would not hesitate one second. Even if he did not suspect me he may have been determined I should have to stay at home. One more score against him.” Her anger lent her strength. She got out of bed and clothed herself in a warm dressing-gown, utterly heedless of the doctor’s orders. Something that was not herself made her think of the scarab and Marcus Wray. Could she have in her very hands the destruction of her enemy, and not know it? She took it out of its hiding-place, and saw the flash of Cylmer’s ring, where it lay beside it. When Marcus Wray was routed, she could put it on--she turned away that she might not see it, but the sight of it had deepened her hatred of the man who stood between her and happiness, whom, for her mother’s sake, she dared not defy. A step outside startled her. She had just time to throw the scarab into the drawer and lock it, when her mother was in the room. Her mother in white, in that very gown she should have burned, long ago! “Why are you up? You’ll kill yourself!” Mrs. Trelane said sharply. “I’m all right. I couldn’t stay in bed. Mother, in Heaven’s name, why have you got on that?” she pointed like an accusing judge at the tawdry white dress.