"Nothing has happened at home." "Then why are you here? Are you, too, delirious?" Her scornful laugh rang startlingly on the still night air. "Oh, Salome! You grieve, you shock me!" "Yes, Dr. Grey, you have assured me of that fact too frequently--too feelingly--to permit me to doubt your sincerity. You need not repeat it; I accept the assertion that you are shocked at my indiscretions." Compassion predominated over displeasure, as he observed the utter recklessness that pervaded her tone and manner. "I am unwilling to believe that you would, without some very cogent reason, violate all decorum by coming alone at dead of night two miles through a dreary stretch of hills and woods. Necessity sometimes sanctions an infraction of the rules of rigid propriety, and I am impatient to hear your defence of this most extraordinary caprice." She was endeavoring to disengage the fringe of her shawl from the hedge, but finding it a tedious operation, she caught her drapery in both hands and tore it away from the thorns, leaving several shreds hanging on the prickly boughs. "Dr. Grey, I have no defence to offer." "Tell me what induced you to come here." "An eminently charitable and commendable interest in your fair patient. I came here simply and solely to ascertain whether Mrs. Gerome would die, or whether she could possibly recover." Unflinchingly she looked up into his eyes, and he thought he had never seen a fairer, prouder, or lovelier face. "How did you expect to accomplish your errand by wandering about these grounds, exposing yourself to insult and to injury?" "I have been on the gallery since twilight, looking through the lace curtains at Mrs. Gerome lying on her bed, and at you sitting in the arm-chair. Her eyes are keener than yours, for she saw me peeping through the window, and told you so. When you left the room I came out among the trees to escape observation. I scorn all equivocation, and have no desire to conceal the truth, for if I am not dowered 'With blood trained up along nine centuries, To hound and hate a lie,' at least I hold my pauper soul high above the mire of falsehood; and ... 'The things we do, We do: we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed.'" They had walked away from the hedge, and Dr. Grey paused at the mound, where the Ariadne gleamed cold and white in the moonbeams that slanted across it like silver lances. Revolving in his mind the best method of extricating the orphan from the unfortunate predicament in which her rashness had plunged her, he did not answer immediately, and Salome continued, impatiently,--