While she lay thus but half conscious, swift footsteps passed through the hall, a spasm swept over that pale face, and Jessie made a struggle to move and get away from the hateful sound. It was but a faint motion, and she was still again. Then came a low smothered sound of conversation near the door, and all was silent after that. I had hoped that Mr. Lee would come back and help me save his child from the depths of her trouble; but he did not appear, and I dared not send for him. "Lottie," I said, at last, "will you help me? Can you and I carry her up to her room, or must I call one of the people?" "You and I--no one else." We lifted Jessie from the floor, and carried her up-stairs, meeting no one. As we came to the passage which led to Mrs. Lee's chamber, Lottie paused and drew a heavy breath; then looking down on that still face, she turned toward the sacred chamber. I did not protest. That room seemed the most natural place for Mrs. Lee's daughter when driven forth from her father's heart. Poor Jessie! We laid her down on her mother's bed, and there she rested for many a long day and night--if rest was ever known to a nervous fever like that which fell upon her from the hour of her father's wrath. While Jessie lay on the bed with her eyes wide open, and shudders of distress passing over her, Lottie drew me to another part of the room, and asked, in a troubled voice, what had made her young lady so ill. I had no other friend in whom it was possible to confide. Lottie, with all her eccentricities, was true as steel, but I did not myself know the entire cause of all this disturbance, and could not speak of it with anything like certainty, so I only answered her, as quietly as I could, that Mrs. Dennison was going away. A quick light flashed into Lottie's eyes. She looked from side to side, as if wondering what direction to take. Her sharp intellect almost caught the truth. "But Miss Jessie isn't fretting so about that. There's something else. Oh, Miss Hyde! do tell me what it is!" "I cannot tell you, Lottie, what I do not understand myself." "And you won't listen. High notions will be the death of you yet. Oh, how I hate airs! Now, if it had been me, I'd have known all about it, by hook or by crook, but it's of no use talking. Are you sure Babylon is going; if she is, her last trump has been played, and she thinks she's won High, Low, Game, and a Jack turned up. Oh, if I only had time to make this all out, but it's hop, skip, and a jump; here they jump right into the dark." "What do you mean, Lottie?" "Oh, nothing particular. You keep your secrets, and I'll keep mine. That's fair."