ous sense of
responsibility. She began to watch her mistress's movements with
hyper-sensitive anxiety. She fell into the habit of going over her
bedroom two or three times a day, giving a sort of examination to its
contents.

"Perhaps I'm so fond of her that it's making me downright silly," she
said to her mother; "but it seems as if I can't help it. I feel as if
I'd like to know everything she does, and go over the ground to make
sure of it before she goes anywhere. I'm so proud of her, mother; I'm
just as proud as if I was some connection of the family, instead of just
her maid. It'll be such a splendid thing if she keeps well and
everything goes as it should. Even people like us can see what it means
to a gentleman that can go back nine hundred years. If I was Lady Maria
Bayne, I'd be here and never leave her. I tell you nothing could drive
me from her."

"You are well taken care of," Hester had said. "That girl is devoted to
you. In her lady's maid's way she'd fight for your life."

"I think she is as faithful to me as Ameerah is to you," Emily answered.
"I feel sure Ameerah would fight for you."

Ameerah's devotion in these days took the form of a deep-seated hatred
of the woman whom she regarded as her mistress's enemy.

"It is an evil thing that she should take this place," she said. "She is
an old woman. What right hath she to think she may bear a son. Ill luck
will come of it. She deserves any ill fortune which may befall her."

"Sometimes," Lady Walderhurst once said to Osborn, "I feel as if Ameerah
disliked me. She looks at me in such a curious, stealthy way."

"She is admiring you," was his answer. "She thinks you are something a
little supernatural, because you are so tall and have such a fresh
colour."

There was in the park at Palstrey Manor a large ornamental pool of
water, deep and dark and beautiful because of the age and hugeness of
the trees which closed around it, and the water plants which encircled
and floated upon it. White and yellow flags and brown velvet rushes grew
thick about its edge, and water-lilies opened and shut upon its surface.
An avenue of wonderful limes led down to a flight of mossy steps, by
which in times gone by people had descended to the boat which rocked
idly in the soft green gloom. There was an island on it, on which roses
had been planted and left to run wild; early in the year daffodils and
other spring flowers burst up through the grass and waved scented heads.