The Countess caught up some of the letters lying before her and began to tear them across; but her fingers failed her, the pieces dropped from her grasp and her hands sank into her lap. "There is no need for me to speak any more," she said, and her head fell against the satin and gilt chair-back. "You are ill!" cried Honoria. "Get up, my lady, and take off these wet clothes." The Countess made no movement, and her maid, who could not see well in this dim light, sprang to the window and pulled back the blinds. The rain of the night was over, the drops gleamed beautifully on the panes and a pale bar of sunlight fell across the chamber and struck the upturned face of the Countess Lavinia. "What is the matter?" exclaimed Honoria. "Come to bed, my lady." "I walked home," said the Countess. "How strange the city is at night! I beheld the dawn break behind St. James's Church." "No one saw you?" asked the maid. My lady shook her head. "But you must tell them I was there." "Ye talk madly! Why should I speak? It hath ended well; my lord lives." "Marius hath the blame," said the Countess in an exhausted voice. "Honoria, I could have loved him." "What matter for that? He can go abroad. Ye are safe. Come to bed." She caught her mistress by the arm and strove to raise her from the chair. "Will you not come to bed? What if any find you in this trim?" The Countess raised herself languidly. "I should put these papers to rights," she said feebly. Honoria noticed with a little pang of horror that the letters scattered about were old, childish epistles dating from my lady's girlhood at the boarding-school, and long put away. "What are you doing with these?" she asked. "I do not know." The Countess dropped the keys of the desk from her limp hand and caught Honoria's shoulder. "Help me to bed. I am very cold." "You risked your life in this wet!" cried the maid, terrified at her face. "You are certainly ill. Shall I fetch the doctor?" "No--no doctor," answered the Countess. "I am very well." Honoria helped her to the bedchamber and undressed her, huddling away the wet clothes with their treacherous stains of mud. The Countess flung a blue wrap over her tumbled petticoats and sank into a chair at the foot of her bed. "Will you have your chocolate?" asked Honoria, kneeling before her and taking off her damp shoes. The Countess nodded. "It is early yet," continued the maid. "Will you not get to bed?" The Countess Lavinia raised herself in her chair and looked round the room--rich, yet dishevelled and dreary with its confusion of articles of frivolity and vanity. "No," she said vacantly. "Go make the chocolate." Honoria gave her a pair of glittering slippers and went lightly into the next chamber, where, on an elegant table of kingswood, stood the silver chocolate service. Before preparing this she crept to the door, opened it, and went out upon the landing to peer over the lordly stairs. Everything was silent. But the Earl must have returned.