And with this cruel speech, Mrs. Susan Sharpe, keeping her eyes anywhere but upon the young lady’s face, lifted the tray and turned to go.

“Is there anything I can do for you, miss?” she said, pausing at the door.  “Is there anything nice you would like for supper?”

But Mollie did not reply.  Utterly broken down by fasting, and imprisonment, and solitude, she had flung herself passionately on the floor, and burst out into a wild storm of hysterical weeping.

“I’m very sorry for you, Miss Dane,” the nurse said for the benefit of the eavesdropper without; “but my duty’s my duty, and I must do it.  I’ll fetch you up your supper presently—­a cup of tea will cure the ’stericks.”

She opened the door.  Mrs. Oleander, at the head of the staircase, was making a great show of having just come up.

“They’ll be the death of me yet—­those stairs!” she panted.  “I often tell my son I’m not fitted to mount up and down a dozen times a day, now in my old age; but, la! what do young men care?”

“Very true, ma’am,” replied the imperturbable nurse to this somewhat obscure speech.

“And how’s your patient?” continued the old lady.

“Very bad, ma’am—­’stericky and wild-like.  I left her crying, poor soul!”

“Crying!  For what?”

“Because I wouldn’t help her to escape, poor dear!” said Mrs. Sharpe in a tone of commiseration.  “She’s greatly to be pitied.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Oleander, carelessly; “you couldn’t help her, you know, even if you would.  There’s Peter, and Sally, and me on the watch all day long, and from nightfall we let loose Tiger and Nero.  They’d tear you both to pieces in five minutes.  Tell her so, poor creature, if she talks any more of escape.”

“I will, ma’am,” responded the respectful Mrs. Sharpe.

Mrs. Oleander ascended the stairs and went to her own room, very well satisfied with the submissive and discreet new nurse; and the new nurse descended to the kitchen, and prepared her patient’s supper of tea and toast, delicate sliced ham, and raspberry preserves.

The dusk of the sunless afternoon was falling out-of-doors ere her preparations were completed, and the stair-ways and halls of the dreary house were in deepest gloom as she returned to her patient’s room.

She found that unhappy little patient lying prone on her face on the floor, as still, as motionless as if death had hushed forever that impulsive heart.  She made no sign of having heard when Mrs. Sharpe entered—­she never moved nor looked up until the nurse set the tray on the table, and stooping over her, gave her a gentle shake.

“Miss Dane,” she said in her stolid tones, “please to get up.  Here’s your supper.”

And Mollie, with a low, wailing cry, raised her wan face and fixed her blue eyes on the woman’s face with a look of passionate reproach.

“Why don’t you let me alone?  Why don’t you leave me to die?  Oh, if I had but the courage to die by my own hand!”