were still trickling down it, which he had
shed by his wife's bed-side.

"Go in," he said, turning away his face. "She
does not wish the nurse to attend; she only
wishes for you. Call me, if the doctor—"
His voice faltered, and he hurried away without
attempting to finish the sentence.

Sarah Leeson, instead of entering her
mistress's room, stood looking after her master
attentively, as long as he was in sight, with
her pale cheeks turned to a deathly whiteness,
—with an eager, doubting, questioning
terror in her eyes. When he had disappeared
round the corner of the gallery, she listened
for a moment outside the door of the
sickroom—whispered affrightedly to herself,
"Can she have told him?"—then opened the
door, with a visible effort to recover her self-
control; and, after lingering suspiciously on
the threshold for a moment, went in.

Mrs. Treverton's bed-chamber was a large,
lofty room, situated in the western front of
the house, and consequently overlooking the
sea-view. The night-light burning by the
bed-side, displayed rather than dispelled the
darkness in the corners of the room. The bed
was of the old-fashioned pattern, with heavy
hangings and thick curtains drawn all round
it. Of the other objects in the chamber,
only those of the largest and most solid kind
were prominent enough to be tolerably visible
in the dim light. The cabinets, the wardrobe,
the full-length looking-glass, the high-backed
arm-chair, these, with the great shapeless
bulk of the bed itself, towered up heavily
and gloomily into view. Other objects were
all merged together in the general obscurity.
Through the open window—opened to admit
the fresh air of the new morning after the
sultriness of the August night—there poured
monotonously into the room, the dull, still,
distant roaring of the surf on the sandy coast.
All outer noises were hushed at that first
dark hour of the new day. Inside the room,
the one audible sound was the slow, toilsome
breathing of the dying woman, raising itself
in its mortal frailness, awfully and distinctly,
even through the far thunder-breathing from
the bosom of the everlasting sea.

"Mistress," said Sarah Leeson, standing
close to the curtains, but not undrawing them.
"My master has left the room, and has sent
me here in his place."

"Light!—give me more light." The feebleness
of mortal sickness was in the voice; but
the accent of the speaker sounded resolute
even yet—doubly resolute by contrast with
the hesitation of the tones in which Sarah
had spoken. The strong nature of the
mistress and the weak nature of the maid came
out, even in that short interchange of words,
spoken through the curtain of a death-bed.

Sarah lit two candles with a wavering hand
—placed them hesitatingly on a table by the
bedside—waited for a moment, looking all
round her with a kind of suspicious timidity
—then undrew the curtains.

The disease of which Mrs. Treverton was
dying, was one of the most terrible of all the
maladies that afflict humanity—one to which
women are especially subject—and one which
undermines life, without, in most cases, showing
any remarkable traces of its corroding
progress in the face. No uninstructed person,
looking at Mrs. Treverton when her attendant
undrew the bed-curtain, could possibly have
imagined that she was past all rescue that
mortal skill could offer to her. The slight
marks of illness in her face, the inevitable
changes in the grace and roundness of its
outline, were rendered hardly noticeable by the
marvellous preservation of her complexion
in all the light, the delicacy, the brilliancy of
its first girlish beauty. There lay her face on
the pillow—tenderly framed in by the rich
lace of her cap; softly crowned by her shining
brown hair—to all outward appearance, the
face of a beautiful woman recovering from a
slight illness, or reposing after unusual
fatigue. Even Sarah Leeson, who had watched
her all through her malady, could hardly
believe, as she looked at her mistress now, that
the Gates of Life had closed behind her, and
that the beckoning hand of Death was signing
to her already from the Gates of the
Grave.

Some dogs'-eared books in paper covers lay
on the counterpane of the bed. As soon as
the curtain was drawn aside, Mrs. Treverton
ordered her attendant by a gesture to remove
them. They were Plays, underscored in
certain places by ink lines and marked with
marginal annotations referring to entrances,
exits, and places on the stage. The servants,
talking down-stairs of their mistress's
occupation before her marriage, had not been
misled by false reports. Their master, after
he had passed the prime of life, had, in
very truth, taken his wife from the obscure
stage of a country theatre, when little
more than two years had elapsed since her
first appearance in public. The dog's-eared
old plays had been once her treasured
dramatic library; she had always retained a
fondness for them from old associations; and
during the latter part of her illness, they had
remained on her bed for days and days
together.

Having put away the plays, Sarah went
back to her mistress; and with more of
dread and bewilderment in her face than
grief, opened her lips to speak. Mrs. Treverton
held up her hand, as a sign that she had
another order to give.

"Bolt the door," she said, in the same
enfeebled voice, but with the same accent of
resolution which had so strikingly marked
her first request to have more light in the
room. "Bolt the door. Let no one in, till I
give you leave."

" No one?" repeated Sarah faintly. "Not
the doctor? not even my master?"

"Not the doctor. Not even your master,"
said Mrs. Treverton, and pointed to the door.