I
stay here while you go to bed?'

'Anything, dearest, dearest sister.'

'Only let me be in the room with you, and be quiet.'

She would not, as Violet entreated, lie down on the bed beside her,
but remained seated on the floor, her eyes riveted on the fire, never
looking round, her face stupefied, her hands hanging motionless, like
one stunned; and when Violet's anxious gaze was closed by irresistible
sleep, that dark head was still motionless before the fire.

Her mind was indeed a blank, sensible of nothing but the effect of the
shock. The phrase now and then occurred, 'Percy is married to Jane;'
but her perceptions were so sluggish that she scarcely knew that it
concerned her. She seemed to have forgotten who Percy was, and to shrink
from recalling the remembrance. There was a repose in this state of
stupor which she was reluctant to break; and after the great clock, so
melancholy in the silence, had tolled half-past twelve, her sensations
were absorbed in the dread of hearing One! the summons to exertion.

The single note pealed out, and died quivering slowly away; she rose,
lighted her candle, and quitted the room, feeling as if the maid's
illness and the doctor's directions belonged to some period removed by
ages.

CHAPTER 3

This house of splendour and of princely glory
Doth now stand desolated, the affrighted servants
Rush forth through all its doors. I am the last
Therein.

--Wallenstein

Theodora was no sooner in the gallery than she was recalled to the
present. There was a strange gleam of light reflected on the avenue.
Roused at once to action, she hurried towards the window. The fire was
within the house. She pushed open the door leading to Mrs. Nesbit's
apartments. Light was flashing at every chink of the bed-room door. She
threw it back. Out rolled a volume of smoke, the glare of flame burst on
her, the curtains were blazing! 'Aunt! Aunt Nesbit, are you there?
she cried, in tones low with horror and choked with smoke; she plunged
between the burning curtains, felt that she had a hold of something,
dragged it out, found it move and gasp, bore it from the room, and,
depositing it on a couch in the gallery, only then could perceive that
it was indeed Mrs Nesbit, uninjured, though half-suffocated.

Mrs. Garth, who slept in the adjoining room, with the door open, had
been waked by her call, and came running out. An old soldier, she had
full self-possession, a