of relief.

Dicky drew my chair close to his, and we sat for a long time looking
at the leaping flames, only occasionally speaking.

It was at the end of a long silence that Dicky turned toward me, with
eyes so troubled that all my fears leaped up anew. I sprang to my
feet.

"What is it, Dicky?" I entreated, wildly. "Oh! I know something
terrible is the matter!"

He rose from his chair, and clasped my hands tightly.

"I suppose I'd better tell you quickly, dear," he replied. "Your
cousin, Jack Bickett, is reported killed."

"Killed!" I repeated faintly. "Jack Bickett killed! Oh, no, no,
Dicky; no, no, no!"

I heard my own voice rise to a sort of shriek, felt Dicky release my
hands and seize my shoulders, and then everything went black before
me, and I knew nothing more.

When I came to myself, I was lying on the couch before the fire, with
my face and the front of my gown dripping with water, the strong smell
of hartshorn in the room, and Dicky with stern, white face, and Katie
in tears, hovering over me.

Dicky was trying to force a spoon between my teeth when I opened my
eyes. He promptly dropped it, and the brandy it contained trickled
down my neck. I raised my hand to wipe it away, and Dicky uttered a
low, "Thank God!"

"Oh, she no dead, she alive again!" Katie cried out, and threw herself
on her knees by my side, sobbing.

"Get up, Katie, and stop that howling!" Dicky spoke sternly. "Do you
want to get my mother down here? Go upstairs at once and prepare Mrs.
Graham's bed for her. I will carry her up directly. Are you all right
now, Madge?"

His tone was anxious, but there was a note of constraint in it, which
I understood even through the returning anguish at Dicky's terrible
news, which was possessing me with returning consciousness.

He believed that my feeling for my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett, was a
deeper one than that which I had always professed, a sisterly love for
the only near relative I had in the world. This was the reason for his
sudden, passionate embrace of me when he entered the house, his demand
that I tell him I loved him better than anybody in the world or out of
it.

He had been jealous of Jack living, he would still be jealous of him
dead! But as the realization again swept over me that Jack, steadfast,
manly Jack, the only near relative I had, was no longer in the same
world with me, that never again would I see his kind eyes, hear his
deep, earnest voice, all thoughts o