Mary cried as she sat and listened, shedding many soft tears. Her eyes shone behind them with joy and peace. She had found what she had lost. No more would her old lord frown upon her in her dream; no more would she feel that imperfection, that something which she could not understand, the mystery which had haunted her life, though she did not know what it was. She could not, perhaps would not, for even in this feeble state there is some moral control, allow herself to think further. It was enough that she had come out of the darkness, and that the light was sweet. When the daylight began to come in at the window and make the candles pale, Lady Frogmore rose, as light and serviceable as if it had not been she who had been surrounded with such anxious cares for so many years, and placed upon such a platform of weakness and disadvantage. She was not weak nor at any disadvantage now. Her maid slept. Her sister, who had ministered to her all these years, lay silent, looking on while she put out the candles and closed the shutter on the window. “I am coming to bed,” she said, “if you will make room for me, Agnes: not because I am tired, for I could sit and hear of him for ever, but because we must be early astir to-morrow, and I suppose rest is necessary. I don’t feel any need of it,” she said, with a soft laugh. “None at all. I feel young and strong as if I could do anything. I feel about twenty, Agnes. But make a little room and I think I shall sleep. It is like old times,” she said as she took her place by her sister’s side, “like old, old times, when the little girls were always together. Do you remember the time when we two were the little girls?” They kissed each other, laughing and crying over that old recollection. How long, how long ago? And all life had passed since then, and here they were, two sisters growing old, with wrinkles upon the faces which the early light revealed, despising all the tender fictions of the night. Mary soon slept as she had said, fearing nothing, innocent in the discovery she had made. She fell asleep like a child with the light of the summer morning growing on her face. But Agnes could not sleep. When her sister’s regular breathing showed the deep repose in which she was wrapped, Agnes stole out of bed and went to the furthest window where there was a glimmer of the rising sun, and knelt down there in the dawning ray, turning her face towards the east. Why she could not have told. To turn her face towards the east was no spell, there was nothing in that to secure that her prayers should be heard. And it could not be said that she prayed. Her soul and body were both worn out. She knelt there silent, her head bowed in her hands. The new day was bringing life or death to Mar--which was it bringing, life or death? She knelt on silent, like an image of devotion. It was something at least to await that crisis, when it should come, upon her knees.