"My poor, handsome Theo," he would say. "Why, my beauty, there are tears in your eyes. What a scoundrel I am, if I have brought them there. What! the rose-colored satin again, my darling! Don't wear the rose-colored satin, Theo. It hurts my eyes. For God's sake, Priscilla, forgive me!" And yet, even while they added to her terror, these poor ravings were some vague comfort, since they told her that he loved her. More than once her friend the doctor entered the room, and found her kneeling by the bedside, holding the unresponsive hand, with a white face and wide, tearless eyes; and seeing her thus, he read clearly that his pretty, inexperienced _protege_ had more at stake than he had even at first fancied. It was about six days after Theodora North had arrived at St. Quentin, when, sitting at her post one morning, she heard the lumbering stage stop before the inn door. She rose and went to the window, half mechanically, half anxiously. She had been expecting Lady Throckmorton, for so long a time, that it seemed almost impossible that it could be she. But strangers had evidently alighted. There was a bustle of servants below, and one of them was carrying a leathern trunk into the house immediately under her window. It was a leathern trunk, rather shabby than otherwise, and on its side was an old label, which, being turned toward her, she could read plainly. She read it, and gave a faint start. It bore, in dingy black letters, the word "Downport." She had hardly time to turn round, before there was a summons at the door, and without waiting to be answered, Splaighton entered, looking at once decorous and injured. "There are two ladies in the parlor, mademoiselle," she said (she always called Theo mademoiselle in these days), "two English ladies, who did not give their names. They asked for Miss North." Theo looked at the woman, and turned pale. She did not know how or why her mother and Pamela should come down to this place, but she felt sure it was they who were awaiting her; and for the first time since she had received the telegram, a shock of something like misgiving rushed upon her. Suppose, after all, she had not done right. Suppose she had done wrong, and they had heard of it, and came to reproach her, or worse still (poor child, it seemed worse still to her), to take her away--to make her leave her love to strangers. She began to tremble, and as she went out of the room, she looked back on the face upon the pillow, with a despairing fear that the look might be her last. She hardly knew how she got down the narrow stair-case. She only knew that she went slowly, in a curious sort of hysterical excitement. Then she was standing upon the mat at the parlor-door; then she had opened the door itself, and stood upon the threshold, looking in upon two figures just revealed to her in the shadow. One figure--yes, it was Pamela's; the other not her mother's. No, the figure of Priscilla Gower.