“You are desperate,” said she.  “You say these cold, bitter words, and you must know that each word cuts me.  Oh, Ernest, you are false, indeed, if you come to taunt me with your faithlessness!”

“I needed to see you once more,” he said, imperiously,—­“I needed it.  But you were right, Agnes,—­the ring was a true talisman.  It seemed to me that its letters had changed color.  I carried it to an old Eastern scholar.  He declared that the letters could never have formed the word ’Faith,’—­that the word was some black word that meant death.  I left it with him, that he might study it.  When I saw him again, he declared he had lost it, and had advertised it.  You see you can trust your talisman sooner than you can trust me.”

At this moment the outer door opened, and presently Fanny came in, with one of her friends.  Miss Agnes looked bewildered, but her visitor recovered his composure directly.

“Miss Fanny, I believe;—­I have met you before.  I have just been bidding good-bye to Miss Agnes, before leaving for Europe.  Can I be of service to you?”

Before we had time to think, he had said something to each one of us, and had left the house.  Fanny turned to speak to Miss Agnes, but she had fallen to the ground before we could reach her.

She was ill, very ill, for a long time.  She had the brain fever,—­so the doctor said.  They let me stay with her,—­she liked to have me with her.  I was glad to sit in the darkened room all the long day.  I never was a “handy” child, but I learned to be useful to her.  I waited on all her wants.  I held her hand when she reached it out as if to meet some kindly touch.

In the quiet of her room, I had not heard the great piece of news,—­of the terrible railroad accident:  that Mr. Carr, the Ernest who had been to see Miss Agnes, was among those who were suddenly killed,—­the very day he left our house!  I had not heard it; so I was not able to warn Fanny, when she came into the sick room of Miss Agnes, the first day she was able to talk,—­I could not warn Fanny that she must not speak of it.  But she did.  How could she be so thoughtless?  Miss Agnes, it is true, looked almost well, as she was lying on her couch, a soft color in her cheeks.  But then Fanny need not have told her anything so painful.  Miss Agnes looked quite wild, and turned to me as if to know whether it were true.  I could not say anything to her, but knelt by her,—­and she seemed almost calm, as she asked to know all that was known, all the terrible particulars that Fanny knew so well.

She was worse after that.  We thought she would die, one night.  But she did not die.  Either she was too weak or too strong to die of a broken heart.  Perhaps she was not strong enough to love so earnestly such a one as Mr. Carr, or else she had such strength as could bear the trial that was given her to bear.  She lived, but life seemed very feeble in her for a long time.

One day she began to talk with me.