“She is ill! She is dangerously ill! Let me go to her! Let me go to her at once!” exclaimed the terrified husband, breaking from the earl’s hold. “No, no, I beg of you! It would be useless! She is—sleeping! Two physicians and a nurse watch beside her, and they forbid all approach for the present. Come in here with me!” said the earl, drawing his brother-in-law into the nearest room, which happened to be a temporarily untenanted private parlor. “When did this happen? Why was I not sent for at once? What is the nature of her illness? Oh, my dear wife!” exclaimed the squire, as he fell rather than sat down upon the nearest chair. The earl closed the door and turned the key, and then answered: “Not an hour ago! They—Elfrida and her daughter, with Miss Hedge and myself—were in the drawing room waiting for your arrival before ordering breakfast. A servant brought in the morning paper, and Wynnette took it to read aloud for the benefit of the party. She turned first to the report of the examination of the two prisoners, Silver and Cloud, alias Stukely and Bayard, and of the demand of the British Government for their extradition upon charge of piracy and slave dealing.” “Good Heaven!” “The demand was said to have come through the British consul at New York, who had been on the watch for the possible capture by our ships of this same pirate ship.” “Then old Grandiere’s word will come true!” “Probably! But as Wynnette read I happened to look at my sister. She had grown deadly pale. I arose to go to her, but she raised her hand with a gesture of command that stopped me, and she listened to the end of the reading, and then, with her wonderful self-control—deadly pale as she was—arose to leave the room. Wynnette had not observed the change in her mother; but Odalite and Elva had done so, and both of them sprang to her side. Her attack was so sudden and unaccountable.” “I understand! I understand!” muttered Mr. Force to himself. “But she waved the girls back in the most peremptory manner, and went alone to her room. The children came back to me, and gazed in my face for an explanation. I could give them none. They once more started to follow their mother. But I called them back, and told them to be patient. Then the condition of little Rosemary Hedge claimed attention. She was sobbing violently on the sofa. I told my nieces to respect their mother’s wish to be left alone; that she was probably overcome by the ill news of one whom she had known from his boyhood, and that she would best recover her composure in solitude.” “I understand! I understand!” again murmured the poor squire to himself. “I went to Rosemary, and sought to soothe her. While I was so engaged little Elva slipped away and went up to her mother’s room, and instantly came shrieking back, telling us, in wild and incoherent exclamations, that her mother lay unconscious on the floor of her chamber. “Gracious! Gracious heavens!” groaned the squire.