crying
out aloud:--"Oh, what is this--what _is_ it?" as she had done when she
first saw the mill-model. Then on a sudden a paroxysm seized on the
frail body, so terrifying to Gwen that her heart fairly stood still to
see it.

It did not kill. It seemed to pass, and leave a chance for speech. But
not just yet. Only a long-drawn breath or two, ending always in a moan!

Then, with a sudden vehemence:--"Who was it--who was it--that forged the
letter that came--_that came to my husband and me_?" Her voice rose to a
shriek under the sting of that terrible new knowledge. But she had
missed a main point in Gwen's tale. Her mind had received the forgery,
but not its authorship.

Gwen saw nothing to wonder at in this. The thing was done, and that was
enough. "It was your husband himself," said she, and would have gone on
to ask forgiveness for her own half-distortion of the facts, and told
how she came to the knowledge. But the look on her hearer's face showed
her that this must be told later, if indeed it were ever told at all.
She was but just in time to prevent old Maisie falling forward from her
chair in a dead swoon. She could not leave her, and called aloud for
help.

She did not need to call twice. For Widow Thrale, unable to keep out of
hearing through an interview so much longer than her anticipation of it,
had come into the house from the back, and was already in the passage;
had, indeed, been waiting in feverish anxiety for leave to enter.

"Take her--take her!" cried Gwen. "No--never mind me!" And then she saw,
almost as in a dream, how the daughter's strong arms clasped her mother,
and raising the slight unconscious figure, that lay as if dead, bore it
away towards the door. "Yes," said she, "that is right! Lay her on the
bed!"

What followed she scarcely knew, except that she caught at a chair to
save herself from falling. For a reaction came upon her with the
knowledge that her task was done, and she felt dizzy and sick. Probably
she was, for a minute or more, practically unconscious; then recovered
herself; and, though feeling very insecure on her feet, followed those
two strange victims of a sin half a century old. Not quite without a
sense of self-reproach for weakness; for see how bravely the daughter
was bearing herself, and how immeasurably worse it was for her!

She could not but falter between the doors, still standing open. How
could she dare to enter the room where she might find the mother dead?