hing can go far
wrong with you then."

But it was with an inexpressible sinking of the heart that Effie, when
her hurried journey was over, found herself standing at the door of the
hospital. It was the usual hour when the patients are visited by their
friends; and the servant, thinking she was some one sent by the Seatons,
sent her up to the ward at once, without reference to the doctor or the
matron of the institution. Thus it was that with no preparation she
came upon the changed face of her sister.

If Effie should live to be a hundred years old, she would never forget
the first glimpse she had of that long room, with its rows of white beds
against the wall. Every one of the suffering faces that she passed
stamped itself upon her memory in characters that can never fade; and
then she saw her sister.

But was it her sister? Could that face, white as the pillow on which it
lay, be Christie's? One thin, transparent hand supported her cheek; the
other--the very shadow of a hand--lay on the coverlet. Was she
sleeping? Did she breathe? Effie stooped low to listen, and raising
herself up again, saw what almost made her heart cease to beat.

That which Christie had dreaded all these weary weeks, that which she
could find no words to tell her sister, had come upon her. "I shall be
a cripple all my life," she had written; that was all. Now the thin
coverlet betrayed with terrible distinctness her mutilated form. Effie
saw it, and the sight of it made the row of white beds and the suffering
faces on them turn round. She took one step forward, putting forth her
hands like one who is blind, and then fell to the floor.

The shock to Effie was a terrible one. For a while she struggled in
vain with the deadly faintness that returned with every remembrance of
that first terrible discovery. She was weary with her journey, and
exhausted for want of nourishment, having eaten nothing all day. Her
very heart seemed to die within her, and the earth seemed to be gliding
from beneath her feet. She was brought back to full consciousness with
a start, as she heard some one say:

"She ought not to have seen her. She must not see her again to-night.
She must go away and come again in the morning."

With a great effort she rose.

"No," she said, quietly and solemnly; "I cannot go away. I shall never
leave her again, so help me God!"

She rose up, and with trembling fingers began to arrange her hair, which
had fallen