“Miriam,” she said, eagerly, “can you doubt my discretion when you know, too, what your own promises have been now and long ago—­to divide with me, ay, to the last cent, like a sister?  Now, I insist on the drops!  You are pale again, Miriam—­collapsing visibly in my sight.  Do take your remedy—­so efficacious of late in warding off these distressing attacks.  I have taken the trouble, too, to go after them.  I was at some pains in hunting them up; they were not in the usual place.  Come, now, as a punishment for your carelessness, I proclaim myself dictator, and command you to swallow them at once,” and she poured the medicine into a spoon.

“No, Evelyn,” I averred, putting the spoon aside, “I am better without the drops.  I wish to see what my unaided will and constitution can do, this time.”

“There is too much at stake to depend on these, Miriam.  We must unearth this treasure-trove to-morrow at daylight, and defeat Bainrothe on his own grounds, or he may be beforehand with us.  Take your drops, dear, and have a good night’s rest, and be ready for the contest.  There, now, that is a good sister,” embracing me tenderly.

Persuasion and reason accomplished with me what commands could not have done.  I took the drops, went quietly to bed, and was soon lost to a sense of misfortunes, hopes, and the world itself.

I slept profoundly and long.  When I awoke, the slant rays of the evening sun were pouring through the blinds of my window, in lines of moted light.  Mrs. Austin was sitting close to the sash, with her invariable knitting-work, her aquiline profile and frilled cap strongly relieved against the jalousied shutters.

On the mantel-piece were the inevitable spirit-lamp and bowl of panada, recognized at once as part and parcel of my malady.  In the chamber the usual smell of ether, the remedy so often ineffectually administered during the period of my lethargic attacks.

I understood everything now—­I had experienced another seizure, and I had lost a day.

Whether it was this conviction that cleared my brain at once of those mephitic fogs that usually clung around it after a spell of lethargy, long after my consciousness returned, I never knew, but certain it is, I sat up in my bed like one refreshed by sleep, instead of feeling exhausted, and, greatly to her surprise, accosted Mrs. Austin in clear, strong accents.

“How long have I slept?  And where is Evelyn?” I asked.

“You have not opened your eyes to-day, dear child, until just this moment; and Miss Evelyn has not been able to sit up in her bed since she went to it last night, that shock yesterday overcame her so completely.”  By this time she was standing by my pillow, after laying aside her knitting, in a leisurely manner peculiar to her at all seasons.  “But Mabel is in the next room; let me call her to you.”

“Let her stay there,” I interrupted, in a manner so unusual with me, whose first inquiry on reviving from illness had always been for Mabel, instead of Evelyn, that Mrs. Austin looked surprised and startled.