d crept forth, Miss Mary did not know. She sat
down, and pale with fear, placed her helpless hands upon her
knees. What could she do in presence of those blue lips, which
were as silent as if shut by some seal, either sacred or
infernal? What could she do? Cara's father was not at home, and
to call her mother, when the very mention of that mother brought
a cry of terror from the girl's breast, would have been a useless
cruelty. Her brother? Her elder sister? Miss Mary's hand moved in
a manner indicating doubt. It was necessary to wait, to leave her
some time to herself. She might grow calm, overcome her fear,
speak.

Left to herself Cara went to the bed, knelt by it, and buried her
face in the coverlet; but a few minutes later she wound her lithe
form like the twist of a serpent, and turned her face toward the
ceiling. She remained in this posture rather long, only changing,
from time to time, the position of her head, which rested on the
coverlet.

Miss Mary remembered people seized with violent pains, who, in
the fruitless hope of allaying them, changed positions and
postures continually. She remembered, also, the faintness and
weariness which cover the faces of people with pallor and an
expression of unbearable disgust. A certain disgust, repulsive
and unendurable, must be working in that slender breast, from
which a low moan came when she turned her head from side to side.

"Are you ill, dearest Cara; are you in pain?"

Prom the bed, in a scarcely audible whisper, came:

"No."

She rose, went to Miss Mary, sat on the carpet, put her head on
the English girl's knee, with her face toward the ceiling. She
threw her hands back on her dishevelled hair, and then let them
drop without control, so that they fell on the carpet as if
lifeless. Her dry, inflamed eyes continued to look at the
ceiling. Miss Mary, bent, and making her words as low and
fondling as human words could be, inquired again:

"Has anything happened? Has anything hurt you?"

Changing the position of her head, and shaking it, as if she
wished to shake something off, she whispered:

"Nothing."

And rising, she went again to the end of the room. Her hair, not
long, but thick, like a bundle of silken flax, lay motionless on
her narrow shoulders; her pendent hands seemed like two rose-buds
falling from a bush. She stood again for a moment before the
clump of green plants, then went around it and hid beyond the
thickest palms at the window. Outs