hed her robe.

Something which came nigh to being a shudder passed through Mistress
Clorinda's frame; but it was gone in a second, and she touched
Anne--though not ungently--with her foot, withdrawing her robe.

"Do not stain it with your tears," she said "'twould be a bad omen."

Anne buried her face in her hands and knelt so before her.

"'Tis not too late!" she said--"'tis not too late yet."

"For what?" Clorinda asked. "For what, I pray you tell me, if you can
find your wits. You go beyond my patience with your folly."

"Too late to stop," said Anne--"to draw back and repent."

"What?" commanded Clorinda--"what then should I repent me?"

"This marriage," trembled Mistress Anne, taking her poor hands from her
face to wring them. "It should not be."

"Fool!" quoth Clorinda. "Get up and cease your grovelling. Did you come
to tell me it was not too late to draw back and refuse to be the Countess
of Dunstanwolde?" and she laughed bitterly.

"But it should not be--it must not!" Anne panted. "I--I know, sister, I
know--"

Clorinda bent deliberately and laid her strong, jewelled hand on her
shoulder with a grasp like a vice. There was no hurry in her movement or
in her air, but by sheer, slow strength she forced her head backward so
that the terrified woman was staring in her face.

"Look at me," she said. "I would see you well, and be squarely looked
at, that my eyes may keep you from going mad. You have pondered over
this marriage until you have a frenzy. Women who live alone are
sometimes so, and your brain was always weak. What is it that you know.
Look--in my eyes--and tell me."

It seemed as if her gaze stabbed through Anne's eyes to the very centre
of her brain. Anne tried to bear it, and shrunk and withered; she would
have fallen upon the floor at her feet a helpless, sobbing heap, but the
white hand would not let her go.

"Find your courage--if you have lost it--and speak plain words," Clorinda
commanded. Anne tried to writhe away, but could not again, and burst
into passionate, hopeless weeping.

"I cannot--I dare not!" she gasped. "I am afraid. You are right; my
brain is weak, and I--but that--that gentleman--who so loved you--"

"Which?" said Clorinda, with a brief scornful laugh.

"The one who was so handsome--with the fair locks and the gallant air--"

"The one you fell in love with and stared at through the window," said
Clorinda, with her brief laugh again. "John Oxon! He