“What is it?’ I asked, as I opened the door and looked at his white face.

“‘Sister,’ he said, stepping into the room.  ’Can you bear some dreadful news?’

“‘Yes,’ I answered with a sensation as if I were turning into stone.  ‘Charlie is dead!  He has killed himself!’

“How I knew it I cannot tell, but know it I did.  Charlie was dead.  He had lost everything and gone from the scene of his ruin to the very spot where he had kissed and said good-by to me, and there had put a bullet through his brain—­close by the clump of lilies which were wet with his blood when they found him lying on his back with his fair young face upturned to the moonlit sky, and a smile on his lips as if the death struggle had been a painless one.

“I knew then that at the last, when his soul was parting from his body, he had called my name, and I had heard him just as I often hear him now when I am all alone, and the night, like that one, is full of moonlight and beauty.

“We took him to England and laid him in his grave, where I buried my heart, my life, and hope, and since then I have grown into the strange, unlovable woman you find me.  But do you wonder that I shrink with horror from the gaming-table and those who frequent it, or that I could not respect your mother when I heard of her so often at Monte Carlo, where Charlie died and where your grandfather ruined himself for he, too, was possessed with a mania for play?”

“Oh, auntie, how sorry I am for you,” Bessie said, throwing her arms around Miss McPherson’s neck and kissing her through her tears.  “I mean to love you so much,” she continued, “and do so much for you, if you will let me I do not mind being your housemaid at all, only just now I feel so tired and sick, as if I could never work any more;” and, wholly exhausted, she sank back upon her pillow, where she lay for a few moments so white and still that her aunt felt a horrible pang of fear lest the prize she so much coveted might be slipping from her almost before she possessed it.

But after a little Bessie rallied, and, smiling upon her aunt, said to her: 

“You cannot guess how happy I am to be here with you, but I do not think I quite understand what you meant by trying me.”

“I meant,” Miss McPherson replied, “to see if you were in earnest when you said you were willing to do anything to earn money, I knew the McPherson pride, and thought you might have some of it.  But I know better now.  I have tried you and proved you, and do not want you as housemaid any longer.  Nor shall I need your services, for a new girl comes to-morrow—­Sarah’s cousin.  She is in New York, and will be here on the morning train.  A regular greenhorn I imagine; but if she is honest and willing, I can soon train her in my ways.  And now I will leave you, for you must sleep to-night, so as to be well to-morrow;” and with a fond good-night, Miss McPherson left the room.

CHAPTER XII.