, had hung
on her mind, always setting her to work to fashion some horrible story
for its owner.

"Yes--Emma Drax.... They found her guilty.... I do not mean that....
What is it I mean?... I mean they laid it all at her door.... Men do!"
This seemed half wandering, and Granny Marrable hoped it meant a return
of sleep. She was disappointed. For old Maisie became more restless and
hot, starting convulsively, catching at her hand, and exclaiming:--"But
how came you to know?--how came you to know? You were not there then.
Oh, Phoebe dearest, you were not there _then_." She kept on saying this,
and Granny Marrable despaired of finding words to explain, under such
circumstances. The tale of her meeting with the convict was too complex.
She thought to herself that she might say that Maisie had spoken the
name as a dream-word, waking. But that would have been a fib, and fibs
were not her line.

* * * * *

"I went myself to get him," said Ruth, reappearing after a longer
absence than old Phoebe had anticipated. She was removing an out-of-door
cloak, and an extempore headwrap, when she entered the room. "How is
she?" she asked.

Old Phoebe shook her head doubtfully. "Whom did you go for, child? The
doctor? I'm glad."

"I thought it better.... Mother darling!--how are you?" She knelt by the
bed, held the burning hands, looked into the wild eyes. "Yes--I did
quite right," she said.

* * * * *

Dr. Nash came, not many minutes later. Whether the mixture to be taken
every two hours, fifty years ago, was the same as would have been given
now, does not concern the story. It, or the reassurance of the doctor's
visit, had a sedative effect; and old Maisie seemed to sleep, to the
great satisfaction of her nurses. What really did credit to his
professional skill was that he perceived that a visit from Lady
Gwendolen would be beneficial. A message was sent at once to John
Costrell, saying that an accompanying letter was to be taken promptly to
the Towers, to catch her ladyship before she went out. We have seen that
it reached her in time.

"You found that all I told you was true, Granny Marrable," said the
doctor, after promising to return in time to catch her ladyship.

"I shall live to believe it true, doctor, please God!"

"Tut tut! You see that it _is_ true."

"Yes, indeed, and I know that yonder is Maisie, come back to life. I
know it by thinking; but 'tis all