“You don’t mean,” she said, with a strange look, which was not quite surprise.

“Yes, my dear brother left us at about three o’clock last night.  A change came on at twelve.”

“Twelve!” Eleonora laid her hand on his arm, and spoke in a quick agitated manner.  “Camilla was much better till last night, when at twelve I heard such a scream that I ran into her room.  She was sitting up with her eyes fixed open, like a clairvoyante, and her voice seemed pleading—­pleading with him, as if for pardon, and she held out her hands and called him.  Then, suddenly, she gave a terrible shriek, and fell back in a kind of fit.  Mr. M’Vie can do nothing, and though she is conscious now, she does nothing but ask for you and say that he does not want you now.”

Julius grew paler, as he said very low, “Anne said he seemed to be seeing and answering her.  Not like delirium, but as if she were really there.”

“Don’t tell any one,” entreated Eleonora, in a breathless whisper, and he signed consent, as both felt how those two spirits must have been entwined, since these long years had never broken that subtle link of sympathy which had once bound them.

Sir Harry’s face, dreary, sunken, and terrified, was thrust over the balusters, as he called, “Don’t hinder him, Lena, she asks for him every moment;” and as they came on, he caught Julius’s hand, saying, “Soothe her, soothe her—­’tis the only chance.  If she could but sleep!”

There lay Camilla Tyrrell, beautiful still, but more than ever like the weird tragic head with snake-wreathed brows, in the wasted contour of her regular features and the flush on her hollow cheeks, while her eyes burned with a strange fire that almost choked back Julius’s salutation of peace, even while he breathed it, for might not the Son of Peace be with some there?

The eager glance seemed to dart at him.  “Julius Charnock!” she cried, “come!” and as he would have said some word about her health, she cut him short:  “Never mind that; I must speak while my brain serves.  After that be the priest.  He is dead!”

“My brother?  Yes.”

“The only one I ever loved!  There’s no sin nor scandal in saying so now.  His wife is better?  It will never kill her.”

“She does not know.”

“No?  There was nothing to make her.  He could not give her his heart, try as he would.  Why did he turn the unchangeable to hate! hate! hate!”

“Lady Tyrrell, you did not send for me to hear what ought not to be said at all?”

“Don’t fly off,” she said.  “I had really something to say.  It was not wholly hate, Julius; I really tried to teach his little idiot of a wife to win him at last.  I meant it to turn out well, and nothing could, with that mother there.”

“I must leave you, Lady Tyrrell, if you will not control yourself.”