“Don’t be hard on me, Julius,” and she looked up with a glance of better days.  “You idolize her, like all the rest of you; but she chilled me and repelled me, and turned me to bitterness, when I was young and he might have led me.  Her power and his idolatry made me jealous, and what I did in a fit of petulance was so fastened on that I could not draw back.  Why did not he wait a little longer to encumber himself with that girl!  No—­that wasn’t what I had to say—­ it’s all over now.  It is the other thing.  How is Frank?”

“Very ill indeed; but quieter just now.”

“Then there shall not be another wreck like ours.  Lena, are you here?  You saw that Frank had let Constance Strangeways win your pebble.  It was because I showed him the one Beatrice bought, and he thought it yours.  Yes, I saw nothing else for it.  What was to become of the property if you threw yourself away, and on her son?” she added, with the malignant look.  “Whether he knew of this little vow of yours, I can’t tell, but he had lost his head and did for himself.  It was for your good and papa’s; but I shall not be here to guide the clue, so you must go your own way and be happy in it, if she will let you.  Father, do you hear?  Don’t think to please me by hindering the course of true love; and you, Julius, tell Frank he was ‘a dull Moor.’  I liked the boy, I was sorry for him; but he ought to have known his token better;—­and there was the estate to be saved.”

“Estates weigh little now!”

“Clerical!  I suppose now is the time for it?  You were all precision at Compton.  It would kill me; I can’t live with Mrs. Poynsett.  No, no, Tom, I can’t have old Raymond quizzed; I’ll get him out of it when the leading-strings are cut.  What right has she—­ ?”

The delirium had returned.  Julius’s voice kept her still for a few moments, but she broke out afresh at his first pause, and murmurs fell thick and fast from her tongue, mixing the names of her brother and Raymond with railings at Mrs. Poynsett for slights in the days when the mother was striving to discourage the inclination that resulted in the engagement.

Earnestly did Julius beseech for peace, for repentance for the poor storm-tossed soul; but when the raving grew past control, and the time was coming for his ministrations to the Vicar of Wil’sbro’, he was forced to leave her.  Poor old Sir Harry would have clung to him as to anything like a support, but Eleonora knew better.  “No, dear papa,” she said, “he has given us too much of his time already.  He must go where he can still help.  Poor Camilla cannot attend to him.”

“If she came to herself—­”

“Then send for me.  I would come instantly.  Send to the town-hall any time before twelve, after that to Compton.  Send without scruples, Lenore, you have truly the right.”

They did not send, except that a note met him as he returned home, telling him that suffusion of the brain had set in.  Camilla Tyrrell did not survive Raymond Poynsett twelve hours.