ook from her elders.
"Come!" said the doctor.

They went into the house, and silently to Lydia's half-open door. She
lay across the bed as she had dropped down when she came in, one long
dark braid hanging to the floor. They stood looking at her almost with
awe, as though they were observing for the first time the merciful
miracle of sleep. Her bosom rose and fell in long, regular breaths. The
drawn, haggard mask that had overlain her face so many months was
dissolved away in an utter unconsciousness. Her eyelashes lay on a cheek
like a child's; her mouth, relaxed and drooping, fell again into the
lines they had loved in her when she was a little girl. She looked like
a little girl again to them.

Mrs. Sandworth's hand went to her throat. She looked at her brother
through misty eyes. He closed the door gently, and drew her away, making
the gesture of a man who admits his own ignorance of a mystery.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT

"They must have gone crazy, simply crazy!" said Madeleine, making quick,
excited gestures. "Mrs. Sandworth, of course--a person can hardly blame
her for anything! She's a cipher with the rim off when the doctor has
made up his mind. But, even so, shouldn't you think in common decency
she'd have let us know what they were up to in time to prevent it? _I_
never heard a word of this sickening business of Ariadne's adoption till
day before yesterday. Did _you_?" she ended half-suspiciously.

Mrs. Mortimer stopped her restless pace up and down the old-fashioned,
high-ceilinged room, and made a gesture for silence. "I thought I heard
something--up there," she explained, motioning to the upper part of the
house. "I wonder what made Lydia so sure beforehand that she wouldn't
live through this?"

"Well, I guess from what the nurse told me there _isn't_ much chance for
her," said Madeleine in a hard voice. Her color was not so high as
usual, her beautiful face looked grim, and she spoke in a bitter tone of
seriousness that made her seem quite another person. Marietta's thin,
dark countenance gave less indication of her mood, whatever it was. She
looked sallow and worn, and only her black eyes, hot and gloomy, showed
emotion.

Both women were silent a moment, listening to the sound of footsteps
overhead. "It seems as though it _must_ be over soon now!" cried the
childless one of the two, drawing in her breath sharply. "It makes me
furious to think of women suffering so. Bertha Wi