On the bed situated at the right of the doorway lay a form--awful, ghastly, and unspeakably repulsive. The head, which lay high but inert upon the pillow, was surrounded with the gray hairs of age, and the eyes, which seemed to stare into ours, were glassy with reflected light and not with inward intelligence. This glassiness told the tale of the room's grim silence. It was death we looked on; not the death we had anticipated and for which we were in a measure prepared, but one fully as awful, and having for its victim not Dorothy Camerden nor even Gilbertine Murray, but the heartless aunt, who had driven them both like slaves, and who now lay facing the reward of her earthly deeds, _alone_. As a realization of the awful truth came upon me, I stumbled against the bedpost, looking on with almost blind eyes as Sinclair bent over the rapidly whitening face, whose naturally ruddy color no one had ever before seen disturbed. And I was still standing there when Mr. Armstrong and all the others came pouring in. Nor have I any distinct remembrance of what was said or how I came to be in the ante-chamber again. All thought, all consciousness even, seemed to forsake me, and I did not really waken to my surroundings till some one near me whispered: "Apoplexy!" Then I began to look about me and peer into the faces crowding up on every side, for the only one which could give me back my self-possession. But though there were many girlish countenances to be seen in the awestruck groups huddled in every corner, I beheld no Dorothy, and was therefore but little astonished when in another moment I heard the cry go up: "Where is Dorothy? Where was she when her aunt died?" Alas! there was no one there to answer, and the looks of those about, which hitherto had expressed little save awe and fright, turned to wonder, and more than one person left the room as if to look for her. I did not join them. I was rooted to the place. Nor did Sinclair stir a foot, though his eye, which had been wandering restlessly over the faces about him, now settled inquiringly on the doorway. For whom was he looking? Gilbertine or Dorothy? Gilbertine, no doubt, for he visibly brightened as her figure presently appeared clad in a _negligée_, which emphasized her height and gave to her whole appearance a womanly sobriety unusual to it. She had evidently been told what had occurred, for she asked no questions, only leaned in still horror against the door-post, with her eyes fixed on the room within. Sinclair, advancing, held out his arm. She gave no sign of seeing it. Then he spoke. This seemed to rouse her, for she gave him a grateful look, though she did not take his arm. "There will be no wedding to-morrow," fell from her lips in self-communing murmur.