Her first thought was that there had been a trick played on her! But no--across the bottom of the picture, in Judge Buller's full round hand, was written, "Farrell Wand boarding the _Loch Ettive_." She held it high to the light. Clara had been faithful to her bargain. It was the picture that had deceived her. She studied it with passionate earnestness. She did not know the bearded profile; but in the burly shoulders, in the set and swing of the body in motion, more than all in the lowering, peering aspect of the whole figure, she began to see a familiar something. She held it away from her by both thin edges, and that aspect swelled and swelled in her startled eyes, until suddenly the figure in the picture seemed to be moving from her, not up a gang-plank, but through a glare of sun over grass between broad beds of flowers. She was faint. She was going to fall. She caught at the chair to save herself, and still she was dropping down, down, into a gulf of spinning darkness. "Oh, Harry!" she whispered, and let her head roll back against the arm of the fauteuil. With a dim sense of rising through immeasurable distances back to light she opened her eyes. She saw Mrs. Herrick's face, and as this was connected in her mind with protection she smiled. "Do you feel better?" Mrs. Herrick asked her. Then she opened her eyes wide and saw the walls and the high-arched ceiling of the hall directly above her, knew herself lying on the floor, saw above her the figure of Clara standing with a bottle of salts, and then remembered; and, with a moan, buried her face in Mrs. Herrick's lap. "Oh, no, no, no; don't bring me back; I don't want to come back!" Their voices sounding high above her were speaking. Mrs. Herrick said: "What is that?" Then Clara murmured. Then there was the light rustling of paper. Flora moved her hand. "Give it to me; I want it." She felt the stiff little square of cardboard between her fingers, and closed them around it fast. After a little she went up-stairs holding tight to the baluster with one hand and to Mrs. Herrick with the other. After a little of sitting on the edge of her bed she lay down, still holding to Mrs. Herrick. She felt as though some cord within her had been drawn tight, too tight to endure, and every moment she hoped it would snap and set her free. "You don't think I'm mad, do you?" she asked. Her friend earnestly disclaimed it. "Then things are," Flora said, "everything. Oh, oh!" The memory overwhelmed her. "He took me there as if by chance! He gave the sapphire to me for my engagement ring. Oh, dreadful! Oh, poor Harry!"