Her voice ceased at this point, and Magdalen knew she was asleep; but for herself she felt that she too was going mad with the suspicion which kept growing in intensity, as she recalled other things she had heard from Mrs. Grey, and to which she had paid no attention at the time. Once she arose and going to the glass studied her own face intently. Then she stole to the bedside of the sleeping woman and examined her features one by one, while all the time the faintness was increasing at her heart, and the blood seemed congealing in her veins. There was no trace of color in her face that night when she met the family at dinner, and Alice half shrunk from the eyes which fastened so greedily upon her and scarcely left her face a moment. “What is it, Magdalen?” she asked after dinner, when they were standing alone before the parlor fire, and she felt the burning eyes still on her. “What is it, Magdalen? Is anything the matter?” Then Magdalen’s arms twined themselves around the young girl’s neck in an embrace which had something almost fierce in its fervor. “Oh, Alice, my darling; if it could be, if it could be!” That was the answer Magdalen made, and her voice was choked with tears, which fell in torrents upon Alice’s upturned face. “Excuse me, do!” she added, releasing the young girl, and recovering her composure. “I am nervous to-night. I can’t go back to your mother. I shall be as mad as she is in a little while. Will you take my place in her room just for this evening?” Alice assented readily, and after a few moments she left the parlor, and Magdalen was alone. But she could not keep quiet with that great doubt hanging over her and that wild hope tugging at her heart. Rapidly she walked up and down the long parlors, while the perspiration started about her forehead and lips, which were so ashy pale that they attracted the attention of Mrs. Seymour, when she at last came in, bringing her crocheting with her. “Are you sick, Miss Lennox?” she asked in some alarm; and then Magdalen’s resolution was taken, and turning to the lady, whose shoulder she grasped, she said, “Please come with me to my room, where we can be alone and free from interruption. There is something I wish you to tell me.” And without waiting for an answer she led the astonished woman into the hall and up the stairs in the direction of her own room. CHAPTER XLI. MRS. SEYMOUR AND MAGDALEN. Having locked the door, Magdalen brought a chair to Mrs. Seymour, and said: “You are out of breath; sit there, but let me stand. I should suffocate if I were sitting down. I feel as if a hundred pairs of lungs were rising in my throat.”