-"

She stopped, choked. Loreen took advantage of her silence to pursue the
explanations she seemed to think necessary.

"It was Simsbury who undertook to bring our dying mother from C. station
to our door. He has a crafty spirit under his meek ways, and dressed
himself in a way to lend color to the superstition he hoped to awaken.
William, who did not dare to accompany him for fear of arousing gossip,
was at the gate when the coach drove in. It was he who lifted our mother
out, and it was while she still clung to him with her face pressed close
to his breast that we saw her first. Ah! what a pitiable sight it was!
She was so wan, so feeble, and yet so radiantly happy.

"She looked up at Lucetta, and her face grew wonderful in its unearthly
beauty. She was not the mother we remembered, but a mother whose life
had culminated in the one desire to see and clasp her children again.
When she could tear her eyes away from Lucetta, she looked at me, and
then the tears came, and we all wept together, even William; and thus
weeping and murmuring words of welcome and cheer, we carried her
up-stairs and laid her in the great front chamber. Alas! we did not
foresee what would happen the very next morning--I mean the arrival of
your telegram, to be followed so soon by yourself."

"Poor girls! Poor girls!" It was all I could say. I was completely
overwhelmed.

"The first night after your arrival we moved her into William's room as
being more remote and thus a safer refuge for her. The next night she
died. The dream which you had of being locked in your room was no dream.
Lucetta did that in foolish precaution against your trying to search us
out in the night. It would have been better if we had taken you into our
confidence."

"Yes," I assented, "that would have been better." But I did not say how
much better. That would have been giving away my secret.

Lucetta had now recovered sufficiently to go on with the story.

"William, who is naturally colder than we and less sensitive in regard
to our mother's good name, has shown some little impatience at the
restraint imposed upon him by her presence, and this was an extra
burden, Miss Butterworth, but that and all the others we have been
forced to bear" (the generous girl did not speak of her own special
grief and loss) "have all been rendered useless by the unhappy chance
which has brought into our midst this agent of the police. Ah, if I only
knew whether this was the providen