The silence was broken. A bell evidently rung--a door hastily opened--startled us all three standing together. “Shall Harry go after him?” cried I, seeing how it was and pointing Harry to the door; but Aunt Milly would not, or perhaps could not, suppose that the visitor was merely going away. She sprang up, crying, “She must be ill!” and rushed out of the library. I followed her, alarmed, but not for Miss Mortimer. I saw Luigi standing at the open door, just about to go out into the cold rainy world out of doors, but Aunt Milly did not see him. She rushed forward blindly into the room where she supposed her sister to be ill. When I rushed in after her I found the usual positions of the two ladies much reversed. Miss Mortimer was standing between the fire and the window, looking at her sister with a certain fierce scorn. Aunt Milly had sunk down in utter exhaustion and bewilderment upon a large ottoman. The two were looking at each other, Aunt Milly all trembling, pallid, and anxious. Miss Mortimer, with her head more erect than usual, her muslin mantle hanging back from her shoulders, her attitude very rigid and exact, and no symptom of excitement about her, save in the slight hurried incessant movement of her head and hands. A mere spectator would have said she was the judge and the other the culprit. It was an extraordinary scene. “What did he say? Who is he? What does he want? Sarah, tell me for the love of heaven,” cried Aunt Milly in her agony of distress and terror. “Who is _he_? I am not a girl to distinguish any one person by that name,” said Miss Mortimer. Then she went back steadily to her chair, and sat down in it and took up her knitting. “Any one who thinks to surprise me into speaking of my private affairs, is mistaken,” she said after a while. “Gossips like you may talk as they please; but what belongs to me is mine, and nobody in the world has a right to ask what I either do or say.” That was all. She never opened her lips again that day. She sat there rigid, pretending to work; she did not work however. I noticed that to keep her hands and her head from excessive trembling was almost more than she was able for; but the day passed without any disclosure. I believe now she would die sooner than make any sign. CHAPTER VIII.