"Thank you, Harry! Ah! I know I can rely upon you now. What a weight you have taken off my mind!" She paused a moment and shuddered as she began to speak again in an awed voice. "Oh, husband! I dreamt last night that I was so ill. They had to take my baby away from me; and a woman who hates me came up, and they gave my baby to her to nurse. She took it in her arms and smiled at me--such a smile of triumphant malice! I knew then that my baby would die, I knew that she would kill it; but I could not tell you, I could not warn you. I lay there on the bed, so very ill, so weak, that I could not move even a finger. I tried to scream out, but no voice would come. I lay there and saw my child being carried off to perish, and a word would have saved him, and I could not utter it. Oh, it was awful!" Her brow knitted, and her gaze seemed to turn inwards as she recalled that dreadful vision. "But, Harry!" she continued anxiously, "remember that it is not because of dreams and delusions that I fear for my baby. There is a real danger. Oh, it is horrible that I cannot explain it all to you!" He soothed her mind; and she felt satisfied that, were she to be ill, and were it found necessary to take her baby from her, her husband would keep off all approach of the danger she feared, even as much as if he himself believed in its reality. * * * * * Mary's fears, though exaggerated by ill-health, were far from being without foundation; for Susan Riley was now possessed by the one idea how to gratify her fierce lust of vengeance against the girl who had stood in her way and thwarted her plans. She discovered where Mary lived, and she made it almost a practice to walk to St. John's Wood every Sunday, so that, herself unseen, she could observe her enemy coming out of church. On the Sunday that followed the sending of her second warning, Susan waited in this manner outside the church-door, and her keen eye detected on the face of Mary a shade that had not been there before. It was clear to her that the letter had made the young wife unhappy; she noticed how pale and thin the face was becoming again; so she returned to her cigar-shop with a light and exultant heart, encouraged by her success to ponder over a more deadly attack. A month or so after this, an illness compelled Susan to abandon these visits to St John's Wood for some time. When she was recovered she started one Sunday morning to the church door, anxious to see what change might have come over Mary during those weeks. It was a bitterly cold day towards the end of winter. A keen north-east wind was blowing. Occasional strong squalls accompanied by stinging sleet rushed down the dreary streets; but yet Susan, with the energy of hate, walked all the way, and posted herself as usual on a path among the grey grave-stones, to await the coming out of the Duncans from the church.