The nurse re-entered the room, her arms laden with wood. By some mishap she let a log fall to the floor, and the noise aroused Adeline. Rose ran to the sofa, her eyes full of tears. "Oh, Adeline," she sighed, leaning over her, "you should not take it so heavily to heart. If things were at an end between you and Mr. St. John, there was something noble rather than the contrary in his returning you your letters. Indeed, we have always seen him honourable in all he does. Another might have kept them--have boasted of them--have shown them to the world. I only wish," broke off Rose, going from Adeline's affairs to her own, in the most unceremonious way, "that I could get back all the love-letters I have written! What a heap there'd be of them!" "What do you mean?" demanded Adeline, sitting up on the sofa in her alarm. "Have I been saying anything in my sleep?" "Not much--only a few words," said Mary Carr, stepping forward and speaking in a calm, soothing tone, a very contrast to Rose's excited one. "But we can see how it is about Mr. St. John, Adeline. He left in ill-feeling, and the inward grief is killing you by inches. If your mind were at rest, time might restore you to health; but, as it is, you are giving yourself no chance of life." "There is no chance for me," she answered; "you know it. If I were happy as I once was, as I once thought I should be; if I were even married to Mr. St. John, there would be no chance of prolonged life for me; none." Mary Carr did know it; but she strove to soothe her still. "I might have expected all that has happened to me," smiled Adeline, trying to turn the subject to a jest, the first approach to voluntary smile or jest they had marked on her lips. "Do you remember your words, Rose, on that notable first of January, my ball-night--that some ill-fate was inevitably in store for me?" "Rubbish!" said Rose. "I was an idiot, and a double idiot: and I don't remember it." But Rose did remember it, all too vividly. She remembered how Adeline had laughed in ridicule, had spurned her words, then; in her summer-tide of pride and beauty. It was winter with her now! There could be no further erroneous opinions on the point. Physically, she was dying of consumption, as a matter of course, and as the doctors said: but was she not just as much dying of a broken heart? The cruel pain was ever torturing her: though her lungs had been strong and healthy, it might have worked its work.