Agnes started to her feet.  She placed herself at the piano; the instrument being opposite to the door, it was impossible, when she seated herself on the music-stool, for any person entering the room to see her face.  Henry called out irritably, ‘Come in.’

The door was not opened.  The person on the other side of it asked a strange question.

‘Is Mr. Henry Westwick alone?’

Agnes instantly recognised the voice of the Countess.  She hurried to a second door, which communicated with one of the bedrooms.  ‘Don’t let her come near me!’ she whispered nervously.  ’Good night, Henry! good night!’

If Henry could, by an effort of will, have transported the Countess to the uttermost ends of the earth, he would have made the effort without remorse.  As it was, he only repeated, more irritably than ever, ‘Come in!’

She entered the room slowly with her everlasting manuscript in her hand.  Her step was unsteady; a dark flush appeared on her face, in place of its customary pallor; her eyes were bloodshot and widely dilated.  In approaching Henry, she showed a strange incapability of calculating her distances—­she struck against the table near which he happened to be sitting.  When she spoke, her articulation was confused, and her pronunciation of some of the longer words was hardly intelligible.  Most men would have suspected her of being under the influence of some intoxicating liquor.  Henry took a truer view—­he said, as he placed a chair for her, ’Countess, I am afraid you have been working too hard:  you look as if you wanted rest.’

She put her hand to her head.  ‘My invention has gone,’ she said.  ‘I can’t write my fourth act.  It’s all a blank—­all a blank!’

Henry advised her to wait till the next day.  ‘Go to bed,’ he suggested; and try to sleep.’

She waved her hand impatiently.  ‘I must finish the play,’ she answered.  ’I only want a hint from you.  You must know something about plays.  Your brother has got a theatre.  You must often have heard him talk about fourth and fifth acts—­ you must have seen rehearsals, and all the rest of it.’  She abruptly thrust the manuscript into Henry’s hand.  ’I can’t read it to you,’ she said; ’I feel giddy when I look at my own writing.  Just run your eye over it, there’s a good fellow—­and give me a hint.’

Henry glanced at the manuscript.  He happened to look at the list of the persons of the drama.  As he read the list he started and turned abruptly to the Countess, intending to ask her for some explanation.  The words were suspended on his lips.  It was but too plainly useless to speak to her.  Her head lay back on the rail of the chair.  She seemed to be half asleep already.  The flush on her face had deepened:  she looked like a woman who was in danger of having a fit.

He rang the bell, and directed the man who answered it to send one of the chambermaids upstairs.  His voice seemed to partially rouse the Countess; she opened her eyes in a slow drowsy way.  ‘Have you read it?’ she asked.