d anxious.

"What is the matter?" whispered she. "Why did she go to bed so
early?"

Miss Mary gave some pacifying answer. That was caution. She felt
always in that house, and on that day more than ever, the need of
caution in making observations. Both looked at the girl, who, as
they thought, was sleeping soundly; she breathed slowly and
evenly, with a deep flush on her cheeks.

Malvina bent down and impressed a long kiss on the forehead of
her sleeping daughter. Then Miss Mary noted something of which
she was not sure: when her mother's lips rested on Cara's
forehead a quiver ran through the girl's body, from head to foot.
But Miss Mary was not sure whether Cara really trembled, or it
only seemed so to her. After Malvina's departure she remained at
the bedside, with eyes fixed on the delicate face, which was
growing more inflamed with an ever-increasing flush. A number of
dark spots came out on her purple lips, which were parched and
half open, her small pearl-like teeth gleamed behind them.

"She is sick, but has fallen asleep!" thought Miss Mary. "Perhaps
that horror, which I thought seized the child in the empty
drawing-rooms, was an invention of her mind? Surely it was
nothing more; she is simply ill; perhaps, not very ill, since she
fell asleep so quickly."

The small night-lamp shone in Cara's room like a blue spark. In
the adjoining room, beyond the open door, far into the night,
rustled book-leaves turned by the English governess. Miss Mary
watched long, and stood often in the open door, between her room
and Cara's, inclining forward, looking from a distance at the bed
from which the regular, unbroken sound of breathing came to her.
She is asleep. She moved a number of times and groaned, then
again she was silent. Puff lay at her feet, like a bundle of
ash-colored silk, and snored slightly. The street beyond the
garden grew more and more silent till it was silent altogether.
At the windows light began to whiten the shades and to draw aside
the black curtain of darkness which was on the furniture. The
wearied Miss Mary, in a long dressing-gown, ready to spring from
her bed any moment, slept for a short time and then woke with a
feeling of great fear. She was roused by a sharp cold by a breath
of frosty air coming in through the open door. She sprang up and
ran, with a cry, to Cara's chamber. There, on the threshold she
saw beyond the spreading palm leaves the great window half open,
and a slender, white