His manner was so quietly authoritative that she obeyed instantly, and when he lifted her from the sofa, she took his arm, and walked towards the door. Before they had crossed the hall, he felt her reel and lean more heavily against him, and silently he took the thin form in his arms, and carried her to her room. The gray head was on his shoulder, and the cold marble cheek touched his, as he laid her softly down on her bed and arranged her pillows. He rang for Katie, and, in crossing the floor, stepped on something hard. It was too dusky in the closely curtained apartment to see any object so small, but he swept his hand across the carpet and picked up the key that had slipped from her nerveless fingers. Placing it beside her, he smiled and said,-- "You are incorrigibly careless. Are you not afraid to tax my curiosity so severely, and tempt me so pertinaciously, by strewing your keys in my path? The next time I pick up this one, which belongs to your escritoire, I shall engage some one to act as your guardian. Katie, be sure she takes that tonic mixture three times a day. Good-night." When the sound of his retreating footsteps died away, Mrs. Gerome thrust the key under her pillow, and murmured,-- "I wonder whether this Ulpian can be as true, as trusty, as nobly fearless as his grand old Roman namesake, whom not even the purple of Severus could save from martyrdom? Ah! if Ulpian Grey is really all that he appears. But how dare I hope, much less believe it? Verily, he reminds me of Madame de Chatenay's description of Joubert, 'He seems to be a soul that by accident had met with a body, and tried to make the best of it.'" "Did you speak to me, ma'am?" asked Katie, who was bustling about, preparing to light the lamp. "No. The room is like a tomb. Open the blinds and loop back all the curtains, so that I can look out." "And the sunset paled, and warmed once more With a softer, tenderer after-glow; In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore And sails in the distance drifting slow." CHAPTER XXV. "Doctor Grey, sister says she wants to see you, before you go to town." Jessie Owen came softly up to the table where Dr. Grey sat writing, and stood with her hand on his knee. "Very well. Tell sister I will come to her as soon as I finish this letter. Where is she?" "In the library." "In ten minutes I shall be at leisure." He found Salome with a piece of sewing in her hand, and her young sister leaning on her lap, chattering merrily about a nest full of eggs which she and Stanley had found that morning in a corner of the orchard; while the latter swung on the back of her chair, winding over his finger a short curl that lay on her neck. It was a pleasant, peaceful, homelike picture, worthy of Eastman Johnson's brush, and for thirty years such a group had not been seen in that quiet old library.