e, which speedily changed into one of the utmost
perplexity.

"What am I doing here?" she asked. "I have a feeling as if I had
almost seen--almost touched--oh, it's gone! and all is blank again. Why
couldn't I keep it till I knew--" Then she came wholly to herself and,
forgetting even the doubts of a moment since, remarked to Violet in her
old tremulous fashion:

"You asked us to pull down the books? But you've evidently thought
better of it."

"Yes, I have thought better of it." Then, with a last desperate hope of
re-arousing the visions lying somewhere back in Mrs. Quintard's troubled
brain, Violet ventured to observe: "This is likely to resolve itself
into a psychological problem, Mrs. Quintard. Do you suppose that if
you fell again into the condition of last night, you would repeat your
action and so lead us yourself to where the will lies hidden?"

"Possibly; but it may be weeks before I walk again in my sleep, and
meanwhile Carlos will have arrived, and Clement, possibly, died. My
nephew is so low that the doctor is coming back at midnight. Miss
Strange, Clement is a man in a thousand. He says he wants to see you.
Would you be willing to accompany me to his room for a moment? He will
not make many more requests and I will take care that the interview is
not prolonged."

"I will go willingly. But would it not be better to wait--"

"Then you may never see him at all."

"Very well; but I wish I had some better news to give."

"That will come later. This house was never meant for Carlos. Hetty, you
will stay here. Miss Strange, let us go now."

"You need not speak; just let him see you."

Violet nodded and followed Mrs. Quintard into the sick-room.

The sight which met her eyes tried her young emotions deeply. Staring at
her from the bed, she saw two piercing eyes over whose brilliance death
as yet had gained no control. Clements's soul was in that gaze; Clement
halting at the brink of dissolution to sound the depths behind him for
the hope which would make departure easy. Would he see in her, a mere
slip of a girl dressed in fashionable clothes and bearing about her all
the marks of social distinction, the sort of person needed for the
task upon the success of which depended his darlings' future? She could
hardly expect it. Yet as she continued to meet his gaze with all the
seriousness the moment demanded, she beheld those burning orbs lose
some of their demand and the fingers, which had lain inert upon