or more she
waited impatiently, growing each moment more and more excited. If
Margaret were found she wished to know it, and if she were not found
it was surely her duty to go at once and tell them where she was.
But could she walk? She stepped upon the floor and tried. Her limbs
trembled beneath her weight, and, sinking into a chair, she cried, "I
can't! I can't!"

Half an hour later she heard the sound of wheels. A neighboring farmer
was returning home from Richland, and had taken the cross road as
his shortest route. "Perhaps he will let me ride," she thought, and,
hobbling to the door, she called after him, making known her request.
Wondering what "new freak" had entered her mind, the man consented,
and just as it was growing dark he set her down at Madam Conway's
gate, where, half fearfully, the bewildered woman gazed around. The
windows of Margaret's room were open, a figure moved before them;
Margaret might be there; and entering the hall door unobserved, she
began to ascend the stairs, crawling upon her hands and knees, and
pausing several times to rest.

It was nearly dark in the sickroom, and as Mrs. Jeffrey had just gone
out, and Theo, in the parlor below, was enjoying a quiet talk with her
husband, Madam Conway was quite alone. For a time she lay thinking
of Margaret; then her thoughts turned upon George and his "amazing
proposition." "Such unheard of insolence!" she exclaimed, and she was
proceeding farther with her soliloquy, when a peculiar noise upon the
stairs caught her ear, and raising herself upon her elbow she listened
intently to the sound, which came nearer and nearer, and seemed like
someone creeping slowly, painfully, for she could hear at intervals a
long-drawn breath or groan, and with a vague feeling of uneasiness she
awaited anxiously the appearance of her visitor; nor waited long, for
the half-closed door swung slowly back, and through the gathering
darkness the shape came crawling on, over the threshold, into the
room, towards the corner, its limbs distorted and bent, its white hair
sweeping the floor. With a smothered cry Madam Conway hid beneath the
bedclothes, looking cautiously out at the singular object which came
creeping on until the bed was reached. It touched the counterpane, it
was struggling to regain its feet, and with a scream of horror the
terrified woman cried out, "Fiend, why are you here?" while a faint
voice replied, "I am looking for Margaret. I thought she was in bed"