t. Weariness
overcame her, and before she could suspect the inclination, she had
fallen asleep.

Suddenly she was awake again, wide awake, it seemed to her, without any
interval of half-consciousness, and staring horror-struck at the scene
before her. The shaded lamp stood on the chest of drawers at one side
of the room, and by its light she saw her mother in front of the
looking-glass, her raised hand holding something that glistened. She
could not move a limb; her tongue was powerless to utter a sound. There
was a wild laugh, a quick motion of the raised hand--then it seemed to
Maud as if the room were filled with a crimson light, followed by the
eternal darkness.

* * * * *

A fortnight later Miss Bygrave was sitting in the early morning by the
bed where Maud lay ill. For some days it had been feared that the
girl's reason would fail, and though this worst possibility seemed at
length averted, her condition was still full of danger. She had
recognised her aunt the preceding evening, but a relapse had followed.
Now she unexpectedly turned to the watcher, and spoke feebly, but with
perfect self-control.

"Aunt, is madness hereditary?"

Miss Bygrave, who had thought her asleep, bent over her and tried to
turn her mind to other thoughts. But the sick girl would speak only of
this subject.

"I am quite myself," she said, "and I feel better. Yes, I remember
reading somewhere that it was hereditary."

She was quiet for a little.

"Aunt," she then said, "I shall never be married. It would be wrong to
him. I am afraid of myself."

She did not recur to the subject till she had risen, two or three weeks
after, and was strong enough to move about the room. Waymark had called
every day during her illness. As soon as he heard that she was up, he
desired to see her, but Maud begged him, through her aunt, to wait yet
a day or two. In the night which followed she wrote to him, and the
letter was this:

"If I had seen you when you called yesterday, I should have had to face
a task beyond my strength. Yet it would be wrong to keep from you any
longer what I have to say. I must write it, and hope your knowledge of
me will help you to understand what I can only imperfectly express.

"I ask you to let me break my promise to you. I have not ceased to love
you; to me you are still all that is best and dearest in the world. You
would have made my life very happy. But happiness is now what I dare
not