slackening thump of his feet on the ground, the heavier and heavier
gasps in which he drew his breath, as he passed the window, gave warning
that his strength was failing him. Exhaustion, if it led to no worse
consequences, would force him to return to the house. In the state of
his brain at that moment who could say what the result might be, if
medical help was not called in?

"I will go for the doctor," said Julius, "if you don't mind my leaving
you."

It was impossible for Anne to set any apprehensions of her own against
the plain necessity for summoning assistance. They found the key of the
gate in the pocket of Geoffrey's coat up stairs. Anne went with Julius
to let him out. "How can I thank you!" she said, gratefully. "What
should I have done without _you!_"

"I won't be a moment longer than I can help," he answered, and left her.

She secured the gate again, and went back to the cottage. The servant
met her at the door, and proposed calling up Hester Dethridge.

"We don't know what the master may do while his brother's away," said
the girl. "And one more of us isn't one too many, when we are only women
in the house."

"You are quite right," said Anne. "Wake your mistress."

After ascending the stairs, they looked out into the garden, through the
window at the end of the passage on the upper floor. He was still going
round and round, but very slowly: his pace was fast slackening to a
walk.

Anne went back to her room, and waited near the open door--ready to
close and fasten it instantly if any thing occurred to alarm her. "How
changed I am!" she thought to herself. "Every thing frightens me, now."

The inference was the natural one--but not the true one. The change
was not in herself, but in the situation in which she was placed. Her
position during the investigation at Lady Lundie's house had tried her
moral courage only. It had exacted from her one of those noble efforts
of self-sacrifice which the hidden forces in a woman's nature are
essentially capable of making. Her position at the cottage tried her
physical courage: it called on her to rise superior to the sense of
actual bodily danger--while that danger was lurking in the dark. There,
the woman's nature sank under the stress laid on it--there, her courage
could strike no root in the strength of her love--there, the animal
instincts were the instincts appealed to; and the firmness wanted was
the firmness of a man.

Hester Dethridge's door opene