her disordered hair back with her hands—
there were bits of grass and fragments of leaves
in it, as though she had been lying with her fair
head prone upon the ground—and gazing upon
her young misery-stricken face. White about
the full pure lips, where the rich blood ordinarily
glowed, purple about the long fair eyelids
and the blushing cheeks, heavy-eyed, the girl
was piteous to see, and she knew it. The
hours that had passed over since she left her
uncle's presence in the morning had been laden
with horror, with dread, with such anguish
as had never in its lightest form touched her
young spirit before, aud she trembled as she
marked the ravages they had made in her
face.

"What shall I do?" she murmured, as
though questioning her own forlorn image in
the glass. "What shall I do? I dare not stay
away from dinner, and what will they say when
they see my face?"

She fastened up her hair, and bathed her
face with cold water, then returned to the
glass to look at it again; but the pallor was
still upon the lips, the discoloration was still
about the heavy eyelids. As she stood despairingly
before the dressing-table, her maid came
to her.

"The dinner-bell will not ring, ma'am," said
the girl. "Mr. Carruthers is afraid of the noise
for Mrs. Carruthers."

"Ay," said Clare, listlessly, still looking at
the disfigured image in the glass. "How is
she?"

"No better, ma'am; very bad indeed, I
believe. But don't take on so, Miss Clare," her
maid went on, affectionately. "She is not so
bad as they say, perhaps; and, at all events,
you'll knock yourself up and be no comfort to
Mr. Carruthers."

A light flashed upon Clare. She had only to
keep silence, and no one would find her out;
her tears, her auguish, would be imputed to her
share of the family trouble. Her maid, who
would naturally have noticed her appearance
immediately, expressed no surprise. Mrs.
Carruthers was very ill, then. Something new had
occurred since the morning, when there had
been no hint of anything serious in her indisposition. The
maid evidently believed her mistress
acquainted with all that had occurred.
She had only to keep quiet, and nothing would
betray her ignorance. So she allowed the girl to
talk, while she made some trifling change in her
dress, and soon learned all the particulars of
Mrs. Carruthers's illness, and the doctor's visit,
of her uncle's alarm, and Mrs. Brookes's
devoted attendance on her mistress. Then Clare,
trembling, though relieved of her immediate
apprehension of discovery, went down-stairs to
join her uncle at their dreary dinner. He made
no comment upon the girl's appearance, and,
indeed, hardly spoke. The few words of
sympathy which Clare ventured to say were briefly
answered, and as soon as possible he left the
dining-room. Clare sat by the table for a while,
with her face buried in her hands, thinking,
suffering, but not weeping. She had no more
tears to-day to shed.

Presently she went to Mrs. Carruthers's room,
and sat down on a chair behind the door,
abstracted and silent. In the large dimly-lighted
room she was hardly seen by the watchers. She
saw her uncle come in, and stand forlornly by
the bed, then the doctor came, and several
figures moved about silently and went away, and
then there was no one but Mrs. Brookes sitting
still as a statue beside the sufferer, who lay in a
state of stupor. How long she had been in
the room before the old woman perceived her,
Clare did not know, but she felt Mrs. Brookes
bending over her, and taking her hand, before
she knew she had moved from the bedside.

"Pray go away and lie down, Miss Carruthers,"
the old woman said, half tenderly, half
severely. "You can do no good here, no one
can do any good here yet, and you will be ill
yourself. We can't do with more trouble in the
house, and crying your eyes out of your head,
as you've been doing, won't help any one, my
dear. I will send you word how she is the first
thing in the morning."

The old woman raised the girl by a gentle
impulse, as she spoke, and she went meekly
away, Mrs. Brookes closing the door behind her
with an unspoken reflection on the uselessness
of girls, who, whenever anything is the matter,
can do nothing but cry.

The night gradually fell upon Poynings, the
soft, sweet, early summer night. It crept into
the sick-room, and overshadowed the still form
upon the bed, the form whose stillness was to
be succeeded by the fierce unrest, the torturing,
vague effort of fever; it closed over the stern
pompous master of Poynings, wakeful and
sorely troubled. It darkened the pretty chamber,
decorated with a thousand girlish treasures,
and simple adornments, in which Clare Carruthers
was striving sorely with the first fierce
trial of her prosperous young life. When it
was at its darkest and deepest, the girl's swollen
weary eyelids closed, conquered by the irresistible
mighty benefactor of the young who suffer.
Then, if any eye could have pierced the darkness
and looked at her, as she lay sleeping, the
stamp of a great fear upon her face, even in her
slumber, and her breast shaken by frequent
heavy sighs, it would have been seen that one
hand was hidden under the pillow, and the fair
cheek pressed tightly down upon it, for better
security. That hand was closed upon three
letters, severally addressed to the advertising
department of three of the daily newspapers.
The contents, which were uniform, had cost
the girl hours of anxious and agonising thoughts.
They were very simple, and were as follows,
accompanied by the sum which she supposed
their insertion would cost, very liberally
estimated:

"The gentleman who showed a lady a sprig
of myrtle on last Saturday is earnestly
entreated by her not to revisit the place where he
met her. He will inevitably be recognised."

"God forgive me, if I am doing wrong in