With a strange mixture of sweet and bitter feelings this vision rested upon the memory of Mrs. Marston, until, gradually, deep slumber again overcame her senses, and the incident and all its attendant circumstances faded into oblivion.

It was past eight o’clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning.  The sun was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows; and as the remembrance of Marston’s visit to her chamber, and the unwonted manifestations of tenderness and compunction which accompanied it, returned, she felt something like hope and happiness, to which she had long been a stranger, flutter her heart.  The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was, however, interrupted.  The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached her ear, and, pushing back the bed-curtains, and leaning forward to look, she saw her maid, Willett, sitting with her back to the wall, crying bitterly, and striving, as it seemed, to stifle her sobs with her apron, which was wrapped about her face.

“Willet, Willett, is it you who are sobbing?  What is the matter with you, child?” said Mrs. Marston, anxiously.

The girl checked herself, dried her eyes hastily, and walking briskly to a little distance, as if engaged in arranging the chamber, she said, with an affectation of carelessness—­

“Oh, ma’am, it is nothing; nothing at all, indeed, ma’am.”

Mrs. Marston remained silent for a time, while all her vague apprehensions returned.  Meantime the girl continued to shove the chairs hither and thither, and to arrange and disarrange everything in the room with a fidgety industry, intended to cover her agitation.  A few minutes, however, served to weary her of this, for she abruptly stopped, stood by the bedside, and, looking at her mistress, burst into tears.

“Good God!  What is it?” said Mrs. Marston, shocked and even terrified, while new alarms displaced her old ones.  “Is Miss Rhoda—­can it be—­is she—­is my darling well?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” answered the maid, “very well, ma’am; she is up, and out walking and knows nothing of all this.”

“All what?” urged Mrs. Marston.  “Tell me, tell me, Willett, what has happened.  What is it?  Speak, child; say what it is?”

“Oh, ma’am!  Oh my poor dear mistress!” continued the girl, and stopped, almost stifled with sobs.

“Willett, you must speak; you must say what is the matter.  I implore of you—­desire you!” urged the distracted lady.  Still the girl, having made one or two ineffectual efforts to speak, continued to sob.

“Willett, you will drive me mad.  For mercy’s sake, for God’s sake, speak—­tell me what it is!” cried the unhappy lady.

“Oh, ma’am, it is—­it is about the master,” sobbed the girl.

“Why he can’t—­he has not—­oh, merciful God!  He has not hurt himself,” she almost screamed.

“No, ma’am, no; not himself; no, no, but—­” and again she hesitated.

“But what?  Speak out, Willett; dear Willett have mercy on me, and speak out,” cried her wretched mistress.