They raised her up and laid her upon the couch. Sir Arthur threw open the doors into the conservatory, and opened the windows in that room also, to admit currents of fresh air. Lady Vaughan withdrew with noiseless step to another room for a glass of cool water. Adrian bent over the wholly unconscious form of his darling, his face almost as white as her own in his anxiety. Suddenly he remembered that he had acquired a slight knowledge of surgery in his University life, and drawing a lancet from his pocket, he made a slight incision in the beautiful snowy arm that lay so limp and lifeless upon his hand. One or two drops of blood from the cut stained his fingers. Passionately he kissed the wound that he had made in his love, but though a slight moan escaped her lips, Hyacinth did not yet move nor awaken from her swoon. The old people returned, and Lady Vaughan moistened the pallid brow and colorless lips. Again that moan came, the girl moved, and presently the white lips parted with a sigh, and the eyes opened with a look of terror in them which Adrian never forgot. "I am so frightened!" she said. "My darling!" cried Adrian, "I am sorry you heard anything about it. Why need you be frightened?" "I am shocked," she said, and the ghastly fear deepened in her eyes. "Of course you are--one so young, so fair, so gentle. The very word 'murder' is enough to terrify you." Then she lay perfectly still--holding her lover's hand in hers, looking at him with such wordless sorrow, such unutterable woe in her face. Lady Vaughan brought her a glass of wine; she drank it, hardly knowing what she did, and then the elder lady, bending over her, kissed her face. "You must not be so sensitive, my dear," she said. "How will you get through life if you feel for everybody's trouble in this fashion? Of course we are all deeply grieved for the young man, but he is nothing to us." Her words fell on dulled ears and an unconscious brain; the girl, still holding her lover's hand, turned her face to the wall. She had not been able to collect her thoughts--they were in a state of chaos. Of all that crowded upon her, that seemed to burn into her brain, that crushed and crowded like living figures around her, one stood out clear, distinct, and terrible--Claude was innocent, and no one in the world knew it but herself. Look where she would, these words seemed to be before her, in great red letters--"No one but myself!" She turned her white face suddenly to Adrian Darcy: "If they find him guilty," she asked, "what will they do to him?" "If he is guilty, he will pay for the crime with his life. But now, Cynthy, you must not think so intently of this. Try to forget it for a little time." Forget it! Ah, if he knew? When should she forget again? "He is innocent, and no one in the world knows it but myself, and no one else can prove it."