Over and over again she said the words; it seemed to her they had bewitched her. As soon as she had finished them, she began the terrible phrase over again. Then the darkness seemed to fall over her. When she raised her eyes again, Adrian was reading to her. She tried hard to grasp the sense of what he was saying. She tried to understand the words, but they were like a dull distant sound--not one was plain or distinct to her. "I must be going mad," she thought, starting up in wild affright; and then Adrian's arms were encircling her. He could feel the terrible beating of her heart; he could see the awful fear in her face. "My dearest Hyacinth," he said gently, "you must not give way to this nervous fear--you will do yourself harm." He laid the fair young head on his breast; he soothed and caressed her as he would have soothed a frightened child; and then Lady Vaughan insisted that she was tired and must go to rest. They did not notice that as she left the room she took with her the paper Sir Arthur had been reading. CHAPTER XVII. Alone at last; and the ghastly fear, the terrible dread, overwhelmed Hyacinth. The paper dropped from her hands, and she fell, with a low, shuddering cry, on her knees. The news was too cruel, too dreadful, too horrible. She moaned rather than cried--"Oh, merciful Heaven, let me die! let me die!" The fear that was upon her was far more trying than any physical anguish. Who could have recognized her crouching there with fever in her brain, with anguish in her heart, as the beautiful brilliant girl who quitted that same room a few hours since, radiant with love and hope? Then she took up the paper, and with wild, distended eyes read this paragraph: