hair, which was all hangin' loose, fell over its
face and her own, and quite hid them both from
my sight, as she answered something that I
couldn't hear.

Looking at the nursery clock, I said:

"But, dear me, ma'am, you must be tired!
It is now upon the stroke of eleven."

At the mention of the hour she half started
from her low posture, no doubt remembering
when she had last heard a mention of eleven
o'clock, and, in the start she gave, she awoke
the baby from its sleep. Throwing out its little
arms, the child caught at some of her bright
long hair as it floated away from her, and began
to cry.

I wouldn't quiet it. I left it all to her. And
oh, how I hoped the child's voice might call her
back to what she used to be, before that dark
handsome face had been seen in our house! She
might not have been happy, but she was
innocent then!

"The baby will always leave off crying best
for you, ma'am," I said. " I will just go and
put out some water for you into the basin, and
unfold your night-dress ready."

She could not but take the crying baby, and I
left her hushing it to rest. When I came back
the child was asleep in her arms, but the tears
were raining down from my lady's eyes upon its
little night-dress. I thought I heard her crying.

Taking the child from her, I laid it into bed,
and then said, as my lady tried in vain to stop
her tears,

"O my dear mistress, I am sure you can't be
well. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, Mary dear," she answered. " Nothing!"

"Shall I send for my master?" I asked. " I
am sure he would grieve dreadfully if you was
ill."

"Mary!" she exclaimed, reproachfully.

But I went on:

"Yes, ma'am, you may not think so, because
master is so quiet like, but I know he would feel
it very much, in his way, if anything happened
to you"

How strong I tried to speak those words!

"He is fond of the baby too," I said, " though
he seldom notices it, for when I took it to the
study window the other day, when I was out
with it in the garden, he took it in his arms and
played with it a long time."

She took upon her to seem quite haughty all
at once, as she rose and told me that I need not
say any more; but I didn't mind, I only said,

"Dear mistress, you surely won't be offended
with me, who have waited on you so long?"

"I am tired, Mary," she answered, " and shall
go to bed now." And she shut her dressin'-
room door, saying that I need not come in
again to help her in undressing, for that the
baby was not quite sound.

I never went to sleep that night, and I got
out of bed several times to listen at her door,
which, when I heard her go through into her
bedroom, I had set ajar. She was always
stirring, never still. And in the middle of the night,
I heard her crying as she had done among the
fir-trees in the shrubbery. She seemed to sleep
once for a short time, but awoke herself in
calling out, " Gerald, do not tempt me!" in a
nightmare dream.

In the morning I rose with a feeling as if a
great weight were upon me which I must remove
by some great endeavour before the night and
eleven o'clock came. I wanted, if possible, that
my dear mistress should take it off herself,
without my having to show her that I knew what
had passed in the shrubbery the night before.
I said to myself, " Surely she will think many
times before she will go out from these doors
to-night. Perhaps she will think better of it.
Perhaps she has never meant to go. Anyhow, I
know the time appointed, and I can watch, and,
at the last, I can but speak."

My lady spent almost all day in her dressin'-
room, and I fancied she was writing. I was glad
she kept there, because it was next the nursery,
and I made the baby crow merrily, and talk in
her pretty way continually, so as to keep the dear
little creature in her mind. The child had learnt
to say "Mamma" quite plain, and, going up to the
dressin'-room door with her little uncertain
footsteps, many times through the day she called
to her to come in, with her sweet tender little
voice. My lady did not come, however, but
kept her own room closely; and I began to
think that she was afraid to look at the dear
baby any more—that she really meant to
leave it.

The day wore on. My mistress, who had
breakfasted up-stairs, only went down to dinner
at five o'clock, and she remained in the drawin'-
room afterwards instead of coming, as she
most times did, to bid the baby good night and
see me undress and put it into bed. We were a
very regular household, and, by ten o'clock, all
the servants were settled for the night. My
lady, looking into the nursery with her dressin'-
gown on (for she had been in her room for some
little time), told me that I might go to bed, for
that she had something she wished to read, and
might, perhaps, sit up late. I made answer,
"Very well, ma'am," and that was all. My lady
never looked towards the little bed where the
baby was sleeping.

I didn't undress, but I got into bed with my
clothes on, and lay waiting and listening. We
always burnt a candle in the nursery on account
of the baby, and I often recal that troubled
wakeful hour when, by its dim light, I lay listening
to every sound in my lady's dressin'-room,
while the queer shadows of the night-shade
danced and flickered on the ceiling.

My mistress, to seem quite careless like, had
left the door of the dressin'-room partly open,
and as she sat there, I could hear the leaves of
a book turned over and over for a length of time.
The hour seemed for ever long. Nothing to
listen to but the ticking of the nursery clock,
and the turning of the pages of my lady's book.
Nothing to look at but the shadow of the night-
shade on the ceiling. I guessed that my mistress
had left her own bedroom door open to the