ast one day, her father, coming unexpectedly into the yard, saw her
carrying a heavy pail of water from the pump. Something stirred within
him, and he went up to her and forcibly took it from her. Their looks
met, and her poor mad eyes gazed intensely into his. As he moved forward
toward the house she crept after him, passing him into the parlor, where
she sank down breathless on the settle where she had been sleeping for
the last few nights, rather than face climbing the stairs. For the first
time he followed her, watching her gasping struggle for breath, in spite
of her impatient motion to him to go. After a few seconds he left her,
took his hat, went out, saddled his horse, and rode off to Whinborough.
He got Dr. Baker to promise to come over on the morrow, and on his way
back he called and requested to see Catherine Leyburn. He stammeringly
asked her to come and visit his daughter who was ill and lonesome; and
when she consented gladly, he went on his way feeling a load off his
mind. What he had just done had been due to an undefined, but still
vehement prompting of conscience. It did not make it any the less
probable that the girl would die on or before Midsummer Day; but,
supposing her story were true, it absolved him from any charge of
assistance to the designs of those grisly powers in whose clutch she
was.

When the doctor came next morning a change for the worse had taken
place, and she was too feeble actively to resent his appearance. She lay
there on the settle, every now and then making superhuman efforts to get
up, which generally ended in a swoon. She refused to take any medicine,
she would hardly take any food, and to the doctor's questions she
returned no answer whatever. In the same way, when Catherine came, she
would be absolutely silent, looking at her with glittering, feverish
eyes, but taking no notice at all, whether she read or talked, or simply
sat quietly beside her.

After the silent period, as the days went on, and Midsummer Day drew
nearer, there supervened a period of intermittent delirium. In the
evenings, especially when her temperature rose, she became talkative
and incoherent and Catherine would sometimes tremble as she caught the
sentences which, little by little, built up the girl's bidden tragedy
before her eyes. London streets, London lights, London darkness, the
agony of an endless wandering, the little clinging puny life, which
could never be stilled or satisfied, biting cold, in