She tried to be sympathetic and kind:  but she was not much encouraged.  Toward afternoon, she left me a good deal alone.  “I wonder how people feel when they are going mad,” I said, getting up and putting cold water on my head.  I was so engaged with the strange sensations that pursued me, that I did not dwell upon my trouble.

“Is this the way you feel when you are going to die? or what happens if you never go to sleep?” My body was so young and healthy, that it was making a good fight.

Just at dusk, Richard returned.  In a little while, about half an hour, Sophie came and told me Richard would like to see me in her little dressing-room.

The day of panic and horror was over, and proprieties must begin their sway.  I felt I hated Sophie for making me go out of my own room, but I pulled a shawl over my shoulders and followed her across the hall into her little room.  There Richard was waiting for me.  He gave me a chair, and then said, “You needn’t wait, Sophie,” and sat down beside me.

Sophie went away half angry, and Richard looked at me uneasily.

“I thought you’d want to see me,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered; “I wish you’d tell me everything,” but in so commonplace a voice, I know that he was startled.

“You do not feel well, do you?  Maybe we’d better not talk about it now.”

“Oh, yes.  You might as well tell me all to-night.”

“Well, everything is done.  The two persons to whom I telegraphed met me at the station.  There was very little delay.  I went with them to the cemetery.”

“I am very glad of that.  I thought perhaps you wouldn’t go.  Was there a clergyman, or don’t they have a clergyman when—­when—­”

“There was a clergyman,” said Richard, briefly.

“I hope you’ll take me there some time,” I said dreamily.  “Should you know where to go—­exactly?”

“Exactly,” he answered.  “But, Pauline, I am afraid you havn’t rested at all to-day.  Have you slept?”

“No; and I wish I could; my head feels so strangely—­light, you know—­and as if I couldn’t think.”

“Haven’t you seen the Doctor?”

“No—­and that’s what I want to say.  I won’t have the Doctor here; and I want you to take me home to-morrow morning, early, I have put a good many of my clothes into my trunk, and Bettina will help me with the rest to-night.  Isn’t there any train before the five o’clock?”

“No,” said Richard, uneasily.  “Pauline, I think you’d better not arrange to go away to-morrow.”

“If you don’t take me out of this house I shall go mad.  I have been thinking about it all day, and I know I shall.”

Richard was silent for a moment, then, with the wise instinct of affection, wonderful in man, and in a man who had had no experience in dealing with diseased or suffering minds, he acquiesced in my plan to go; told me that we would take the earliest train, and interested me in thoughts about my packing.  About nine o’clock he came to my room-door, and I heard some one with him.  It was the Doctor.