Thus, he having ordered that Mrs. Rayner, being an invalid, was not to be disturbed by sweepings and dustings and noises in the passage leading to her room, no member of the household ever dared to enter the left wing but Sarah, who had entire charge of the long corridor, bedroom, dressing-room, and store-room which it contained, although it was shut out from the rest of the house merely by a heavy baize-covered swing-door with only a bolt, which was seldom, I believe, drawn in the daytime. So that Jane felt like a heroine after having ventured on the other side of that door; and, when we came to it, she stood looking first at it and then at me, as if to touch it again were more than she dared. “Oh, miss,” said she, as I stepped forward to go through, “suppose Mr. Rayner was in there?” “But Mr. Rayner is in London,” returned I, laughing. “Ah, yes, miss! But he do come back that sudden sometimes he might be a ghost. Of course it’s all right for you, miss; but, if he was to know I’d been in there, oh, miss, I should die o’ fright! When he’s angry, he just speaks fit to cut yer head off.” I laughed at Jane’s fears, and pushed open the door, not without difficulty, for it was very heavy, and, Jane’s courage having evaporated, she dared not help me. My teeth chattered as I went through this passage, it was so cold; and what was my surprise to find, when I got to the end, that the window had been left open on this chilly and wet October evening! I took the liberty of shutting it, and, returning to the dressing-room door, I tapped softly at it. I could hear Haidee’s voice, but I could not hear what she said, and Mrs. Rayner sobbing and calling her by name. I went in softly, and with a shriek the mother started up from her knees; she had been on the floor beside the bed. Haidee knew me, though her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with fever, and she wandered in her talk. I sat on the bed and tried to make her lie down and keep the clothes over her, for the room was as cold as the corridor. Mrs. Rayner was clinging to the rail at the bottom of the little bed and watching me with eyes as glittering as the child’s. I felt just a little tremor of fear. Had I trusted myself alone with a sick child and a madwoman on the verge of an outbreak of fury? Her bosom heaved and her hands clutched the rail tightly as she said-- “What right have you to come here? Are you not snug and warm upstairs in your turret? Why must you come and exult over me? You were welcome to my husband. Then you took my child. Can you not spare her to me now she is dying?” I had heard that one must always talk to mad people as if one thought them sane; so I said-- “Not dying, Mrs. Rayner; don’t say that. I came down just to see if I could be of any use. Why don’t you take her into your own room? It is so cold in here. And wouldn’t it be better to send in for Doctor Maitland? Oh, I forgot! He is away. But you might send Sam to Beaconsburgh for Doctor Lowe.”