he group of older people watching her with serious looks from
the room beyond. As she did so I noted that she was still clad in her
evening dress of grey, and that there was no more colour on cheek or
lip than in the neutral tints of her gown.

Was it our consciousness of the relief which Mrs. Lansing's death,
horrible as it was, must bring to this unhappy girl, and of the
inappropriateness of any display of grief on her part, which caused the
silence with which we saw her pass with forced step and dread
anticipation into the room where that image of dead virulence awaited
her? Impossible to tell. I could not read my own thoughts. How, then,
the thoughts of others!

But thoughts, if we had any, all fled when, after one slow turn of her
head towards the bed, this trembling young girl gave a choking shriek,
and fell, face down, on the floor. Evidently she had not been prepared
for the look which made her aunt's still face so horrible. How could she
have been? Had it not imprinted itself upon my mind as the one revolting
vision of my life? How, then, if this young and tender-hearted girl had
been insensible to it! As her form struck the floor Mr. Armstrong rushed
forward; I had not the right. But it was not by his arms she was lifted.
Sinclair was before him, and it was with a singularly determined look I
could not understand, and which made us all fall back, that he raised
her and carried her into her own bed, where he laid her gently down.
Then, as if not content with this simple attention, he hovered over her
for a moment, arranging the pillows and smoothing her dishevelled hair.
When at last he left her the women rushed forward.

"Not too many of you," was his final adjuration, as, giving me a look,
he slipped out into the hall.

I followed him immediately. He had gained the moon-lighted corridor near
his own door, where he stood awaiting me with something in his hand. As
I approached, he drew me to the window and showed me what it was. It was
the amethyst box, open and empty, and beside it, shining with a yellow
instead of a purple light, the little vial void of the one drop which
used to sparkle within it.

"I found the vial in the bed with the old woman," said he. "The box I
saw glittering among Dorothy's locks before she fell. That was why I
lifted her."

V

THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING

As he spoke, youth with its brilliant hopes, illusions, and beliefs,
passed from me, never to return in the same meas