As he spoke two of the men-servants came in to carry the insensible Countess upstairs,--and as they slowly bore her on her coffin-like couch past me, one of them drew the coverlet across her face to conceal it. But not so quickly that I could not see the awful change impressed upon it,--the indelible horror that was stamped on the drawn features,--horror such as surely never was seen except in a painter's idea of some lost soul in torment. The eyes were rolled up and fixed in their sockets like balls of glass, and in them also was frozen the same frenzied desperate look of fear. It was a dreadful face!--so dreadful in its ghastly immovableness that I was all at once reminded of my hideous vision of the previous night, and the pallid countenances of the three phantoms that had scared me in my sleep. Lady Elton's looks now resembled theirs! Sickened and appalled I averted my eyes, and was glad to see Rimânez taking farewell of his host, the while he expressed his regret and sympathy with him in his domestic affliction. I myself, approaching Lady Sibyl, pressed her cold and trembling hand in mine, and respectfully kissed it. "I am deeply sorry!" I murmured--"I wish I could do anything to console you!" She looked at me with dry calm eyes. "Thank-you. But the doctors have always said that my mother would have another shock depriving her of speech. It is very sad; she will probably live for some years like that." I again expressed my sympathy. "May I come and inquire about you all to-morrow?" I asked. "It will be very kind of you,"--she answered quietly. "Shall I see you if I come?" I said in a lower tone. "If you wish it,--certainly!" Our eyes met; and I knew by instinct that she read my thoughts. I pressed her hand again and was not repulsed,--then bowing profoundly, I left her to make my adieux to Lord Elton and Miss Chesney, who seemed terribly upset and frightened. Miss Charlotte Fitzroy had left the room in attendance on her sister, and she did not return to bid us good-night. Rimânez lingered a moment behind me to say another word or two to the Earl, and when he joined me in the hall and threw on his opera-coat, he was smiling to himself somewhat singularly. "An unpleasant end for Helena, Countess of Elton"--he said, when we were in our brougham, driving away--"Paralysis is perhaps the worst of all the physical punishments that can befall a 'rapid' lady." "Was she 'rapid'?" "Well,--perhaps 'rapid' is too mild a term, but I can find no other;"--he answered--"When she was young,--she is barely fifty now,--she did everything that could be done by woman at her worst and wildest. She had scores of lovers,--and I believe one of them cleared off her husband's turf-debts,--the Earl consenting gladly,--on a rather pressing occasion." "What disgraceful conduct!" I exclaimed. He looked at me with an expression of cynical amusement.