Gwendolen looked actually frightened; she peered into her cousin's face with her ugly, shortsighted eyes. "What _has_ come over you, Jane?" she asked anxiously. "Oh, I do believe you've got a fever and are out of your head! Get away from me--do! Suppose it should be smallpox, and I should catch it--oh! Go away--quick! Ring the bell for Susan as you go out. She can hook my frock, and----" Jane pirouetted out of the door like a sprite. "Thank you, Gwen!" she cried mockingly. "Yes, I fancy I have a fever. But you'll not catch it, you poor, dear, stupid thing, you!" Then she darted up two flights of stairs to her own cold little room under the roof, where she flung herself face downward across the narrow bed and wept tempestuously. "O God, _please_ let me go away from this house!" she prayed between her sobs. "I've been good and patient just as long as I possibly can. Things will _have_ to change!" The girl was truthful--even with herself--even with her Creator. CHAPTER II Jane Aubrey-Blythe was not in the habit of weakly shedding tears; nevertheless on this occasion she wept herself into a state of somnolence like a whipped child, when she lay quite still, her handkerchief rolled into a tight, damp ball, her limp figure shaken with an occasional recurrent sob. "They are all too hateful," she murmured brokenly. "I wish something would happen--anything; I don't care what." As a matter of fact, something did happen almost immediately. As Jane was sleepily pulling the blankets about her chilly shoulders, Susan's honest face, shining like a hard red apple in the light of the candle she carried, was thrust inside the door. "O Miss Jane Evelyn," she whispered, "are you 'ere?" "What is it, Susan?" demanded Jane, sitting up and winking drowsily at the candle flame. "W'y, you've 'ad no dinner, miss, an' so I've brought you a bite of chicken and a mouthful of salad," said Susan briskly. "Just you lie back comfortable-like on these 'ere pillows, miss, an' I'll bring it in directly." "But I'm not ill, Susan, and I'm not hungry," protested Jane. "I--I'm just tired." "You'll be ill directly if you don't pick a bit o' somethink," Susan declared oracularly, "an' you that slender an' delicate, Miss Jane Evelyn." She was arranging the contents of a neat tray before Jane as she spoke. "Now you jus' try a mossel o' that bird, an' you'll find it tastes moreish, or I'm mistook i' the looks o' it. Miss Gwendolen, now, is that thick i' the waist she might go wi'out her dinner for a fortnight, that she might, miss. It was all I could do a-'ookin' up 'er frock this very evenin'. 'You're such a stoopid, Susan,' she says, 'your fingers is all thumbs.' Then she turns an' twists afore 'er glass as proud as proud, though the Lord knows she's nothink to be proud of, wi' that rough, muddy skin o' hers, alongside of yours, Miss Jane Evelyn."