very wide
awake indeed, and her senses were so clear. One minute later she found
out what it was. There was some slight confusion down-stairs; a door was
opened and closed, and she heard the sound of voices in the
entrance-hall. She turned her head, and listening attentively,
discovered that some one was coming up to the room in which she sat. The
door opened, and upon the threshold stood a servant bearing in his hand
a salver, and upon the salver a queer, official-looking document, such
as she did not remember ever having seen before.

"A telegram," he said, rapidly in French, "for milady. They had thought
it better to acquaint Mad'moiselle."

She took it from him, and opened it slowly and mechanically. She read it
mechanically also--read it twice before she comprehended its full
meaning, so great was the shock it gave her. Then she started from her
seat with a cry that made the servant start also.

"Send Splaighton to me," she said, "this minute, without a moment's
delay."

For the telegram she had just read told her that in a wayside inn, at
St. Quentin, Denis Oglethorpe lay dying, or so near it that the medical
man had thought it his duty to send for the only friend who was on the
right side of Calais, and that friend, whose name he had discovered by
chance, was Lady Throckmorton.

It was, of course, a terribly unwise thing that Theodora North decided
upon doing an hour later. Only such a girl as she was, or as her life
had necessarily made her, would have hit upon a plan so loving, so wild
and indiscreet. But it did not occur to her, even for a second, that
there was any other thing to do. She must go to him herself in Lady
Throckmorton's stead; she must take Splaighton with her, and go try to
take care of him until Lady Throckmorton came, or could send for
Priscilla Gower and Miss Elizabeth.

"Ma'mselle," began the stricken Splaighton, when, as she stood before
the erect young figure and desperate young face, this desperate plan was
hurriedly revealed to her. "Ma'mselle, you forget the imprudence--"

But Theo stopped her, quite ignorant of the fact, that by doing so, she
forfeited her reputation in Splaighton's eyes forever.

"He is going to die!" she said, with a wild little sob in her voice.
"And he is all alone-and--and he was to have been married, Splaighton, in
July--only a few months from now. Oh, poor Priscilla Gower! Oh, poor
girl! We must save him. I must go now and try to save him for her. Oh,