I came forward quietly and dropped into my own seat without saying anything. Dear, dear! had it been an insane, unreasonable terror, or had it been something real and serious that she knew, and she alone? Sarah was leaning a little towards the fire, rubbing the joints of her fingers, which were rheumatic, as I have mentioned before; but it was not what she was doing that struck me; it was the strange look of ease and comfort that had somehow come upon her. Her whole person looked as if it had relaxed out of some bondage. Her head drooped a little in a kind of easy languor: her muslin shawl, lined with pale blue, hung lightly off her shoulders. Her pins were laid down orderly and neat on her basket with the wools. Her very foot was at ease on the footstool. How was it? If it had been incipient madness, could this grateful look of rest have come so easily? Would the fever have gone down only at knowing he was away? Heavens know! I sat all silent in my own chair in the shadow, and felt the water moisten my old eyes. What she must have gone through before this sudden ease could show itself so clearly in every limb and movement! What an iron bondage she must have been putting on! What a relief this was! Her comfort and sudden relaxation struck me dumb. I was appalled at the sight of it. My notion about insanity, dreadful to think of, but still natural and innocent, was shaken; a restless uneasiness of a different description rose upon my mind. Could he indeed be anything to her, this young stranger? Could she in her own knowledge have some mysterious burden which was connected with his coming or going? Could she have _recognised_, instead of only finding an insanely fanciful destiny in his strange face? Impossible! That foreign life of hers, so obscure and mysterious to me, was of an older period than his existence. _He_ could bring no gossip, no recollections to confound her. At the time of her return he could scarcely have been born. Thus I was plunged into a perfect wilderness of amazed questions again. “When little Sara went off to dress,--she dressed every evening, though we never saw anybody,--I stole to the door after her, and caught her little pink ear outside the door in the half-lighted hall. She gave a little shriek when I came suddenly behind her. I believe she thought I was angry, and came to take her punishment into my own hand. “What did you say to your godmamma, Sara?” said I. “Nothing,” said the perverse child. Then, after a little pause, “I told her that your Mr. Luigi was gone, godmamma; and that he was a very pretty-behaved young man; and asked her who the Countess Sermoneta was.” “You did?” “Yes; but she did not mind,” said Sara. “I am not sure if she heard me; she gave such a long sigh, half a year long. Godmamma Sarah’s heart must be very deep down if it took _that_ to ease it; and melted all out, as if frost was over somehow, and thaw had come.” “Ah! and what more?” said I.