“I must speak! My mind is full of horrid questions about it. I know I can’t identify it—and yet I ask myself over and over again, in whose likeness did it appear? Was it in the likeness of Ferrari? or was it—?” she stopped, shuddering. “The Countess knows, I must see the Countess!” she resumed vehemently. “Whether my courage fails me or not, I must make the attempt. Take me to her before I have time to feel afraid of it!” Henry looked at her anxiously. “If you are really sure of your own resolution,” he said, “I agree with you—the sooner you see her the better. You remember how strangely she talked of your influence over her, when she forced her way into your room in London?” “I remember it perfectly. Why do you ask?” “For this reason. In the present state of her mind, I doubt if she will be much longer capable of realizing her wild idea of you as the avenging angel who is to bring her to a reckoning for her evil deeds. It may be well to try what your influence can do while she is still capable of feeling it.” He waited to hear what Agnes would say. She took his arm and led him in silence to the door. They ascended to the second floor, and, after knocking, entered the Countess’s room. She was still busily engaged in writing. When she looked up from the paper, and saw Agnes, a vacant expression of doubt was the only expression in her wild black eyes. After a few moments, the lost remembrances and associations appeared to return slowly to her mind. The pen dropped from her hand. Haggard and trembling, she looked closer at Agnes, and recognised her at last. “Has the time come already?” she said in low awe-struck tones. “Give me a little longer respite, I haven’t done my writing yet!” She dropped on her knees, and held out her clasped hands entreatingly. Agnes was far from having recovered, after the shock that she had suffered in the night: her nerves were far from being equal to the strain that was now laid on them. She was so startled by the change in the Countess, that she was at a loss what to say or to do next. Henry was obliged to speak to her. “Put your questions while you have the chance,” he said, lowering his voice. “See! the vacant look is coming over her face again.” Agnes tried to rally her courage. “You were in my room last night—” she began. Before she could add a word more, the Countess lifted her hands, and wrung them above her head with a low moan of horror. Agnes shrank back, and turned as if to leave the room. Henry stopped her, and whispered to her to try again. She obeyed him after an effort. “I slept last night in the room that you gave up to me,” she resumed. “I saw—”