ess to me!"--she said hoarsely--"Madame de Chaville was
your mistress!"

"Never! Calm yourself, poor Anna! I swear to you. Won't you believe me?"

She trembled violently. "If I left you--for nothing--"

She closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks.

He bent over her--"Won't you rest now--and let them take you back to bed?
You mustn't talk like this any more. You will kill yourself."

He left her in Ramsay's charge, and went first to find Alcott, begging
him to pray with her. Then he wandered out blindly, into the summer
evening. It was clear to him that she had only a few more hours--or at
most--days to live. In his overpowering emotion--a breaking up of the
great deeps of thought and feeling--he found his way into the shelter of
one of the beechwoods that girdled the park, and sat there in a kind of
moral stupor, till he had somehow mastered himself. The "old unhappy
far-off things" were terribly with him; the failures and faults of his
own distant life, far more than those of the dying woman. The only
thought--the only interest--which finally gave him fresh strength--was
the recollection of his boy.

Cynthia!--her letter--what was it she wanted to say to him? He got up,
and resolutely turned his steps towards the cottage.

Cynthia was waiting for him. She brought him into the little drawing-room
where a lamp had been lighted, and a tray of food was waiting of which
she persuaded him to eat some mouthfuls. But when he questioned her as to
the meaning of her letter, she evaded answering for a little while, till
he had eaten something and drunk a glass of wine. Then she stretched out
a hand to him, with a quiet smile.

"Come and see what I have been doing upstairs. It will be dreadful if you
don't approve!"

He followed her in surprise, and she led him upstairs through the
spotless passages of the cottage, bright with books and engravings, where
never a thing was out of place, to a room with a flowery paper and bright
curtains, looking on the park.

"I had it all got ready in a couple of hours. We have so much room--and
it is such a pleasure--" she said, in half apology. "Nobody ever gets any
meals at the Ramsays'--and they can't keep any servants. Of course you'll
change it, if you don't like it. But Dr. Ramsay himself thought it the
best plan. You see we are only a stone's throw from him. He can run in
constantly. He really seemed relieved!"

And there in a white bed, with the newly arrived special
n