’I am glad you have not kept me waiting, Ursula.  I sent up that message in spite of Leah’s telling me that you never left the sick-room.’

‘Leah is wrong,’ I replied coolly.  ’Mr. Hamilton insists on my going in the garden for at least half an hour daily, while Chatty takes my place.  I cannot stay long, Max, but all the same I am glad you sent for me.’

‘I felt I must see you,’ he returned, rather huskily.  ’Letters are so unsatisfactory; but it was good of you to write, always so kind and thoughtful, my dear.’  He paused for a moment as though to recover himself.  ‘She is very ill, Ursula?’

‘Very ill.’

’How gravely you speak!  Are things worse than you told me?  You do not mean to tell me there is absolute danger?’

’Oh no; certainly not; but it is very sad to see her in such a state.  Her nerves have quite broken down; all these three years have told on her, and there seems some fresh trouble on her mind!’

‘God forbid!’ he returned quickly.

’Ay, God forbid, for He alone knows what is burdening the mind of this young creature:  she is too weak to throw off her nervous fancies.  She blames herself for harbouring such gloomy thoughts, and it distresses her not to be able to control them.  The night is her worst time.  If we could only conquer this sleeplessness!  I have sad work with her sometimes.’

I spared Max further particulars:  he was harassed and anxious enough.  I would not harrow up his feelings by telling him how often that feeble, piteous voice roused me from my light slumbers; how, hurrying to her bedside, I would find Gladys bathed in tears, and cold and trembling in every limb, and how she would cling to me, pouring out an incoherent account of some vague shadowy terror that was on her.

There were other things I could have told him:  how in that semi-delirium his name, as well as Etta’s, was perpetually on her lips, uttered in a tone sometimes tender, but more often reproachful, sometimes in a very anguish of regret.  Now I understood why she dreaded Etta’s presence in her room:  she feared betraying herself to those keen ears.  Often after one of these outbursts she would strive to collect her scattered faculties.

‘Have I been talking nonsense, Ursula?’ she would ask, in a tremulous voice.  ’I have been dreaming, I think, and the pain in my head confuses me so:  do not let me talk so much.’  But I always succeeded in soothing her.

If I read her secret, it was safe with me.  I must know more before I could help either her or him.  If she would only get well enough for me to talk to her, I knew what to say; and I did all I could to console Max.  But I could not easily allay his anxiety or my own; it was impossible to conceal from him that she was in a precarious state, and that unless the power of sleep returned to her there was danger of actual brain-fever; in her morbid condition one knew not what to fear.  Perfect quiet, patience, and