“You see, I never knew as she were so greatly attached to poor Gipsy Darke,” she said humbly. “Not but that the girl didn’t deserve to be loved. She was sweet and pretty, as if she had been born in a palace instead of a gipsy tent. And, oh, sir, it makes me glad to tell you her last hours on earth were made happy by your kindness!” she said to Laurie, as he stood alone by Miss Cyrilla’s bed, adding: “She was that proud of the pretty ring you gave her, sir, that she jist sat and smiled to herself all the time as if she had come into a fortune.” Laurie listened as attentively as if it had been the greatest lady in the land speaking to him, and he was more moved than she could see. “Tell me,” he said gently, when she paused in her voluble speech, “did any one but you know of my giving the ring to Miss Darke?” “No, sir, not a soul but me,” she answered readily, adding: “You see, no one else was in her room after you went but me. As for me, I never can forgive myself for listening to her when she told me not to sleep in her room that night, she felt quite well and preferred to be alone. I humored her, and now it almost breaks my heart to think of her fate, poor, innocent lamb!” and she sobbed in genuine distress. But dashing away her tears the next minute, she sighed: “A sick-nurse has no time for tears! Here I was almost forgetting it was time to pour that beef-juice between Miss Willoughby’s lips, though I never expect her to open her poor eyes again in this sinful world!” Laurie started and glanced at his watch. It lacked less than an hour to the wedding, and he had to have a bath and dress. With a sigh he hurried away, and the quaint old nurse, who considered the proud Lelia the incarnation of spite and jealousy, shook her head in frank disapproval, muttering: “To be married in an hour to the spitfire. Lord, how I do pity him! He’s rich and he’s grand, but I wouldn’t be in his shoes for a fortune! And as for her taking that poison--bah! I’ll never believe she tasted a drop of it! It was just a pretense to scare him into taking her back, that’s what it was, and now she’s going to put him in matrimonial chains to keep him straight. I see right through the artful minx!” In the long drawing-room some potted plants and white flowers had been arranged to give it a gala air, and the windows stood wide open, admitting the evening breeze. Outside long, blossoming tendrils of white clematis swayed in the wind and diffused fragrance on the warm air.