It was very late that night when Lucy summoned Valencia to comb out her long, thick curls, and Valencia was tired and cross and sleepy, and handled the brush so awkwardly, and snarled her mistress’s hair so often, that Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could no longer be restrained, and in amazement which kept her silent, Lucy listened, while Valencia vulgarly taunted her with “standing in Anna Ruthven’s shoes,” and told all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia’s anger quickly cooled, and she trembled with fear when she saw how deathly white her distress grew, and even heard the loud beating of the heart which seemed trying to burst from its prison, and fall bleeding at the feet of the poor, wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered as she motioned Valencia to stop, and whispered “I am dying.” She was _not_ dying, but the fainting-fit which ensued was more like death than that which had come upon Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Once they really thought her dead, and in an agony of remorse Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as a murderess, but giving no other explanation to those around her than: “I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over her wrapper, and she said that she was dying.” And that was all the family know of the strange attack which lasted till the dawn of day, and left upon Lucy’s face a look as if years and years of roguish had passed over her young head, and left its footprints behind. Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone, and the repentant girl went to her, prepared to take back all she had said, and declare the whole a lie. But something in Lucy’s manner wrung the truth from her, and she repeated the story again so clearly, that Lucy had no longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously: “Oh, what shall I do? What is my duty?” The part which hurt her most of all was the terrible certainty that Arthur did not love _her_, as he loved Anna Ruthven. She seemed intuitively to understand it all, and see how in an unguarded moment he had offered himself to save her good name from gossip, and how ever since his life had been a constant struggle to do his duty by her. “Poor Arthur,” she sobbed, “yours has been a hard lot, trying to act the love you did not feel; but it shall be so no longer, for I will set you free.” This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till a day and night had passed, during which she lay with her face turned to the wall, saying she wanted nothing except to be left alone. “When I can, I’ll tell you,” she had said to Fanny and her aunt, who insisted upon knowing the cause of her distress. “When I can, I’ll tell you all about it. Leave me alone till then.”