there she had not spoken; no one could quite tell whether
she were conscious or not; but Lesley, who sat beside her, and sometimes
laid her cheek softly against the desolate young bride's cold face, or
kissed the ashen-grey lips, divined by instinct that she was not
unconscious although stunned by the force of the blow--that she was
thinking, thinking, thinking all the time--thinking of her lost lover,
of her lost happiness, and beating herself passionately against the wall
of darkness which had arisen between her and the future that she had
planned for herself and Oliver.

Sarah asked at once for Miss Lesley Brooke, and Mrs. Durant came out of
the dining-room to speak to the messenger.

"Is Miss Brooke wanted very particularly?" she asked. "Miss Kenyon will
not have anyone else with her."

"I think I must speak to Miss Lesley, ma'am; my mistress said I must,"
said Sarah, primly. Then, forgetting her loyalty to her employers in her
desire to be communicative, she went on--"Maybe you haven't heard what's
happened, ma'am. Mr. Brooke's been taken up on the charge of murder----"

This was not strictly true, but it was the way in which Sarah read the
facts.

"And Miss Brooke says Miss Lesley _must_ come home, as it is not proper
for her to stay."

The horror depicted on Mrs. Durant's face was quite as great as Sarah
had anticipated, and even more so. For Mrs. Durant, a conventional and
narrow-minded woman, did not know enough of Caspar Brooke's character to
feel any indignation at the accusation: indeed, she was the sort of
woman who was likely to put a vulgar construction upon his motives, and
regard it as probable that he had quarreled with Oliver for not wishing
to marry Lesley instead of Ethel Kenyon. And she at once grasped the
situation. Under the circumstances--if Caspar Brooke had killed Ethel's
lover--it was most improper that Caspar Brooke's daughter should be
staying in the house.

"Of course!" she said, with a shocked face. "Miss Lesley Brooke must go
at once--naturally. How very terrible! I am much obliged to Miss Brooke
for sending--as Ethel's chaperon I couldn't undertake----I'll go
upstairs and send her down to you."

Sarah was left in the hall, while Mrs. Durant went upstairs. But after a
time the lady came down with a troubled air.

"I can't get her to come," she said. "You must go up yourself, Sarah,
and speak to her. She will come into the dressing-room, she says, for a
minute, but she cannot l