d, in such a voice as sounds from a
parched and quivering throat.

'I'll take good care of that,' Harvey remarked. 'To look at you is
almost enough to make me play the brutal husband, and say that I'll be
hanged if you go out tomorrow at all.'

She laughed--a ghostly merriment.

'Where have you been?'

'Oh, at several places. I met Mr. Carnaby at lunch,' she added quickly.
'He told me he was going somewhere--I forget--oh, to Weymouth, to see
Mrs. Larkfield.'

Harvey was watching her, and paid little attention to the news.

'Do you know, it wouldn't much surprise me if you couldn't get up
tomorrow morning, let alone play at a concert. Well, I won't keep you
talking. Go to bed.'

'Yes.'

She rose, but instead of turning to the door, moved towards where
Harvey was sitting.

'Don't be angry with me,' she murmured in a shamefaced way. 'It wasn't
very wise--I've over-excited myself but I shall be all right tomorrow;
and afterwards I'll behave more sensibly--I promise----'

He nodded; but Alma bent over him, and touched his forehead with her
lips.

'You're in a fever, I suppose you know?'

'I shall be all right tomorrow. Goodnight, dear.'

In town, this morning, she had called at a chemist's, and purchased a
little bottle of something in repute for fashionable disorder of the
nerves. Before lying down she took the prescribed dose, though with
small hope that it would help her to a blessed unconsciousness. Another
thing she did which had not occurred to her for many a night: she knelt
by the bedside, and half thought, half whispered through tearless sobs,
a petition not learnt from any book, a strange half-heathen blending of
prayer for moral strength, and entreaty for success in a worldly
desire. Her mind shook perilously in its balance. It was well for Alma
that the fashionable prescription did not fail her. In the moment of
despair, when she had turned and turned again upon her pillow, haunted
by a vision in the darkness, tortured by the never-ending echo of a
dreadful voice, there fell upon her a sudden quiet; her brain was
soothed by a lulling air from dreamland; her limbs relaxed, and forgot
their aching weariness; she sighed and slept.

'I am much better this morning,' she said at breakfast. 'Not a trace of
fever--no headache.'

'And a face the colour of the table-cloth,' added Harvey.

There was a letter from Mrs. Frothingham, conveying good wishes not
very fervently expressed. She had decided not