e so little worth;
And the end is hard to reach.
For silence after grievous thing's is good,
And reverence, and the fear that makes men whole
And shame, and righteous governance of blood,
And Lordship of the Soul.
And from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit,
And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root;
For words divide and rend,
But silence is most noble till the end."

As she lay there, feeling physically so ill and weak, while yet her mind
worked so clearly and quickly, she set herself to solve a painful
puzzle. Why had Varick tried to do her to death? She admitted to herself
that she had never liked him, but she had never done him any harm. And
they had been on good terms--outwardly--always.

For hours, amid fitful, nightmarish snatches of sleep, and long, lucid
intervals of thought, Bubbles had wrestled with the question.

And then, lying there in the early morning, Bubbles _suddenly knew_.
Varick hated and feared her because she had unwittingly raised his wife
from the dead. And, believing that if he killed her, he would lay that
sinister, vengeful, unquiet ghost, he had deliberately planned
yesterday's expedition in order to do that which he had so nearly
succeeded in doing.

Bubbles gave an eerie little chuckle which startled herself. "I'd have
haunted him!" she muttered aloud. "He'd have found it more difficult to
get rid of me dead than alive."

Even as she murmured the words, the door opened, and she heard a voice
say, hesitatingly, "Then you're awake, Bubbles? Somehow I felt you were
awake, and I thought you might like a cup of tea."

It was Bill Donnington, with a lighted candle in one hand, and a cup of
tea in the other.

How glad she was to see him! How very, very glad! Yet he only looked his
usual sober, unromantic self, standing there at the bottom of her pretty
old walnut-wood bed, looking at her with all his wistful, faithful soul
in his eyes.

Bill was fully dressed, and Bubbles burst out laughing, feebly.

"You _are_ an early bird!" she exclaimed. "And a very proper bird, too.
I suppose you thought you mustn't come into my room in a dressing-gown?"

"I haven't slept all night," he said stiffly. "So I got up an hour ago.
I came and looked in here, as a matter of fact, on my way to the
bathroom. But you were asleep. And then, after I was dressed, I went
down to the kitchen, and made myself a cup of tea. I thought I'd make
one for you, too, just on chance."