Her sister did as she wished, and, taking down “Jemima’s Vow,” Jeannie’s own copy as it was called, being the very first that had come into the house, she opened it at the part Jeannie had asked for and read aloud, keeping her voice as steady as she could.  As a matter of fact, however, the scene itself was as powerful as it was pathetic, and quite sufficient to account for any unseemly exhibitions of feeling on the part of the reader.  However, she struggled through it till the last sentence was reached.  It ran thus:—­“And so Jemima stretched out her hand to him and said ‘Good-bye.’  And presently, knowing that she had now kept her promise, and being happy because she had done so, she went to sleep.”

“Ah!” murmured the blue-eyed child who listened.  “I wish that I was as good as Jemima.  But though I have no vow to keep I can say ‘Good-bye,’ and I can go to sleep.”

Augusta made no answer, and presently Jeannie dozed off.  Her sister looked at her with eager affection.  “She is giving up,” she said to herself, “and, if she gives up, she will die.  I know it, it is because we are not going away.  How can I get the money, now that that horrible man is gone? how can I get it?” and she buried her head in her hand and thought.  Presently an idea struck her:  she might go back to Meeson and eat her words, and sell him the copyright of her new book for L100, as the agreement provided.  That would not be enough, however; for travelling with an invalid is expensive; but she might offer to bind herself over to him for a term of years as a tame author, like those who worked in the Hutches.  She was sure that he would be glad to get her, if only he could do so at his own price.  It would be slavery worse than any penal servitude, and even now she shudders at the prospect of prostituting her great abilities to the necessities of such work as Meeson’s made their thousands out of—­work out of which every spark of originality was stamped into nothingness, as though it were the mark of the Beast.  Yes, it would be dreadful—­it would break her heart; but she was prepared to have her heart broken and her genius wrung out of her by inches, if only she could get two hundred pounds wherewith to take Jeannie away to the South of France.  Mr. Meeson would, no doubt, make a hard bargain—­the hardest he could; but still, if she would consent to bind herself for a sufficient number of years at a sufficiently low salary, he would probably advance her a hundred pounds, besides the hundred for the copyright of the new book.

And so having made up her mind to the sacrifice, she went to bed, and, wearied out with misery, to sleep.  And even as she slept, a Presence that she could not see was standing near her bed, and a Voice that she could not hear was calling through the gloom.  Another mortal had bent low at the feet of that Unknown God whom men name Death, and been borne away on his rushing pinions into the spaces of the Hid.  One more human item lay still and stiff, one more account was closed for good or evil, the echo of one more tread had passed from the earth for ever.  The old million-numbered tragedy in which all must take a part had repeated itself once more down to its last and most awful scene.  Yes; the grim farce was played out, and the little actor Jeannie was white in death!