Lenore was forgetting everything in this watching, but in another quarter of an hour Anne was forced again to torture him with her spoon; but life was evidently gaining ground, for though he put it from him at first, he submitted at Lena’s gesture and word.  She felt the increased warmth and power in his grasp, as he whispered, “Lena, you are come back,” then felt for the token.

Alas! that she must leave him.  They knew she must not stay away from her father; indeed, Rosamond had told no one of her attempt, her forlorn hope.  Lena tried to give assurances that she only went because it could not be helped, and the others told him she would return, but still he held her, and murmured, “Stay.”  She could not tear herself away, she let him keep her hand, and again he dozed and his fingers relaxed.  “Go now, my dear,” said Mrs. Poynsett, “you have saved him.  This stone will show him that you have been here.  You will come back to-morrow, I may promise him?”

“Yes, yes.  In the morning, or whenever I can be spared,” whispered Lena, who was held for a moment to Mrs. Poynsett’s breast, ere Rosamond took her away again, and brought her once more down-stairs and to the pony-carriage.  There she leant back, weeping quietly but bitterly over the shock of Frank’s terribly reduced state, which seemed to take from her all the joy of his revival, weeping too at the cruel need that was taking her away.

“He will do now!  I know he will,” said Rosamond, happy in her bold venture.

“Oh! if I could stay!”

“Most likely you would be turned out for fear of excitement.  The stone will be safer for him.”

“Where did that come from?” asked Lenore, struck suddenly with wonder.

“I wrote to Miss Strangeways, when I saw how he was always feeling, feeling, feeling for it, like the Bride of Lammermoor.  I told her there was more than she knew connected with that bit of stone, and life or death might hang on it.  Then when I’d got it, I hardly knew what to do with it, for if it had soothed the poor boy delirious, the coming to his right mind might have been all the worse.”

Rosamond kissed her effusively, and she dreamily muttered, “He must be saved.”  There was a sort of strange mist round her, as though she knew not what she was doing, and she longed to be alone.  She would not let Rosamond drive her beyond the Sirenwood gate, but insisted on walking through the park alone in the darkness, by that very path where Frank had ten months ago exchanged vows with her.

Rosamond turned back to the Hall.  It was poor Cecil’s pony-carriage that she was driving, and she took it to the stable-yard, where her entreaty had obtained it from the coachman, whom she rewarded by saying, “I was right, Brown, I fetched his best doctor,” and the old servant understood, and came as near a smile as any one at Compton could do on such a day.

“Is the carriage gone for Mr. Charnock?”