y entered her room
whispering: "I'll change this dress for the one he last saw me in, and
stand over here by the crib where I stood then, and--Oh, sweet Heaven!
is this my little flower sleeping just as I left her?" With clasped
hands and tearful eyes she bent over the child.

XXI

EVENING RED

Then she began to unrobe, but stopped to throw her arms about her
mother's neck.

"Now, dearly beloved, you hurry away down the path and persuade him up
and send him in. I'm only afraid you'll find him chilled half to death,
it's growing cold so fast. And you can follow in after him, dearie, if
you wish,--only not too close."

The mother went, and had got no farther than the cross-path when she
came all at once upon the master of the house.

"Oh! ho, ho! here you are! I was just--Arthur, dear, where is your
overcoat? Do go right up to your room, my son, till I can get Sarah
to have a fire started in the library." She multiplied words in pure
affright, so drawn was his face with anguish, and so wild his eyes
with aimless consternation.

Without reply he passed in and went upstairs. Mrs. Morris remained
below.

Isabel's heart beat fast. She had made her change of dress, and in a far
corner of her room, with her face toward the open door that let into
his, was again leaning with a mother's ecstasy over the sleeping babe,
when she heard his step.

It came to his outer door, which from her place could not be seen.

Did he stop, and stand there? No, he had not stopped; he was only moving
softly, for the child's sake.

She stood motionless, listening and looking with her whole soul, and
wishing the light were less dim in this shadowy corner, but knowing
there was enough to show her to him when he should reach the nearer
door. The endless moment wore away, and there on the threshold he
stood--if that--Oh merciful God!--if that was Arthur Winslow.

His eyes fell instantly upon her, yet he made neither motion nor sound,
only stayed and stared, while an unearthly terror came into his face.

Care of the child kept her silent, but in solemn tenderness she lifted
her arms toward him.

He uttered a freezing shriek and fled. In an instant his tread was
resounding in the hall, then on two or three steps of the stair as she
hurried after, and then there came a long, tumbling fall, her mother's
wail in the hail below, and a hoarse cry of dismay from Giles as he
rushed out of the library.

"He's only stunned, mum," G