She cried piteously and passionately when she went back to her seat, rested her arm upon a lounging-chair near her, and hid her face upon it, crying as only a girl can, with an innocent grief that had a pathos of its own. She was so lovely and remorseful. It seemed to her that some fault must have been hers, and she blamed herself that even now she could not wish that she had never met the man whose love for her was a dishonor to himself. Where was he now? He had told Lady Throckmorton that business would call him to several smaller towns on his way, so he might not be very far from Paris yet. She was thinking of this when at last she fell asleep, sitting by the fire, still resting her hand upon the chair by her side. It was by no means unnatural, though by no means poetic, that her girl's pain should end so. But when the time-piece on the mantle chimed twelve with its silver tongue, she found herself suddenly and unaccountably wide awake. She sat up and looked about her. It was not the clock's chime that had awakened her she thought. It must have been, something more, she was so very wide awake indeed, and her senses were so clear. One minute later she found out what it was. There was some slight confusion down-stairs; a door was opened and closed, and she heard the sound of voices in the entrance-hall. She turned her head, and listening attentively, discovered that some one was coming up to the room in which she sat. The door opened, and upon the threshold stood a servant bearing in his hand a salver, and upon the salver a queer, official-looking document, such as she did not remember ever having seen before. "A telegram," he said, rapidly in French, "for milady. They had thought it better to acquaint Mad'moiselle." She took it from him, and opened it slowly and mechanically. She read it mechanically also--read it twice before she comprehended its full meaning, so great was the shock it gave her. Then she started from her seat with a cry that made the servant start also. "Send Splaighton to me," she said, "this minute, without a moment's delay." For the telegram she had just read told her that in a wayside inn, at St. Quentin, Denis Oglethorpe lay dying, or so near it that the medical man had thought it his duty to send for the only friend who was on the right side of Calais, and that friend, whose name he had discovered by chance, was Lady Throckmorton. It was, of course, a terribly unwise thing that Theodora North decided upon doing an hour later. Only such a girl as she was, or as her life had necessarily made her, would have hit upon a plan so loving, so wild and indiscreet. But it did not occur to her, even for a second, that there was any other thing to do. She must go to him herself in Lady Throckmorton's stead; she must take Splaighton with her, and go try to take care of him until Lady Throckmorton came, or could send for Priscilla Gower and Miss Elizabeth.