mmediate danger."

The doctor took up his satchel and started away. In the darkened
corridor Lizzie overtook him just as he had reached the head of the
stairs.

"You said Jane had bad news, doctor," she began, falteringly, dreading
revelations to come. "Do you mean about--about John taking her niece
away?"

"Yes, Mrs. Trott, and the other--the deaths of the two in that awful
wreck."

"Death? Wreck?" Lizzie leaned breathlessly against the wall. "What
wreck--whose death?"

"Oh, oh, is it possible that you haven't heard?" And, standing in the
slender shaft of light from Jane's partly closed door, the doctor
awkwardly explained. Lizzie listened, as he thought, calmly enough. He
couldn't read her face, for she kept it averted in the shadow.

"I understand it all now," she said, after a little pause. "Oh, oh, so
that's it! That's what Jane meant."

She went with the doctor to the door, said good night, and locked the
door after him. She stood in the dismal silence of the dark hall and
heard his horse trotting down the street. She started to her room,
sliding her hand on the smooth balustrade. Her room gained, she stood in
the center of it as purposeless and dazed as a sleeper waking in strange
surroundings. She felt for a chair and sank into it.

"John dead!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Why, why, it can't be--and yet why
not, if they all say so? John dead, Dora dead, Jane dying, and I--and I
left here all alone by myself!"

She undressed in the dark, vaguely dreading the light as if it might
somehow stab her anew. She reclined on the bed. For hours she lay awake.
She tried to cry, but could not summon tears to her eyes. She would have
been afraid of Jane's staggering insanely about the house had the doctor
not assured her that she would not stir till morning. Jane was not a
ghost, but she was a would-be suicide, and that was quite as gruesome to
think about.

CHAPTER XL

Finally she fell asleep, and the sun was well up when she was waked by
Mandy, the negro servant.

"Yo' breakfast done raidy on de table, Mis' Trott," she said, a touch of
condescension in her voice.

"Why, I thought," Lizzie humbly faltered, "that you were not coming
back."

"I did say dat," Mandy answered, "en' I did intend ter keep my word, but
Jake say 'twas my bounden duty ter he'p you out en' not quit yer in de
lurch, now dat you los' yo' son en' de li'l girl dat way. Jake say he
knowed Mr. John Trott en' dat he was er nice-appea