Mary told her story, leaning upon her sister, holding her fast, whispering in her ear. Even Letitia’s cries and vituperations had been subdued, whispers of passion and desperation, no more. But to Agnes it seemed an incredible tale, a vision of the still confused and wandering brain. She soothed Mary, patting her shoulder with a trembling hand saying, “No, no. You must have dreamt it. No, no, my dear: oh, that was not the danger,” in a troubled voice. Mary detached herself from her sister, putting Agnes away gently, but with decision. She took off the bonnet which she had worn all this time, and tied the veil which had dropped from it over her head. Then she went into the inner room without a word. To pass into that silent and darkened room out of the agitation of the other was like going into another world. The breathing of the nurse in her deep sleep filled it with a faint regular sound. The patient did not stir. Mary sat down at the foot of the bed, like a shadow. Her figure in its dark dress seemed to be absorbed in the dimness and pass out of sight altogether. Agnes stood at the door and looked into the chamber full of sleep and silence, weighed down by the mystery about her. Had that fantastic, horrible scene really happened, or had it been but a dream? There were still traces on the carpet of something white that had soaked into it, and her foot had crushed a portion of the broken glass upon the floor. Was it true? Was it possible it could be true? She stood wondering on the verge of the stillness that closed over the sick room in which her sister had disappeared and been swallowed up. It is strange at any time to look into a chamber thus occupied. The feeble patient in the bed noiseless in the slumber of weakness, the watcher by his side invisible in the gloom, a point of wakeful, anxious life among those shadows. The nurse sleeping heavily in the background, invisible, added another aching circumstance to the mystery--nurses of that class do not sleep so. Was it true? Could it be true? She was called back to the common passage of affairs by a faint knock at the door of the ante-room, and going to it found Ford, conducted by a sleepy maid who had been roused to prepare Lady Frogmore’s room. “Where is my lady, Miss Hill?” said the anxious Ford. “I can’t find my lady. It’s late and she’s tired, and I must get her to bed.” “No, Ford; she will not leave her son to-night.” “Oh, Miss Hill, her son! She will die of it, or she will go wrong again, and what will everybody say to me for allowing this? She must come to bed. She must come to bed!” “No one can make her do so, Ford--the nurse has gone to sleep, someone is wanted here. I will stay by her, and if I can get her to go to bed I will.” “You will both kill yourselves,” cried Ford aggrieved, “and what will be the advantage in that? You may, if you please, Miss Hill, I have no authority; but my lady, my lady! It is as much as her life is worth.”