“I may as well make a clean breast of it,” the young woman said.  “I have a sense of responsibility about you that I haven’t liked to speak of before.  It’s half hysterical, I suppose, but it has got the better of me.”

“You feel responsible for me!” exclaimed Emily, with wondering eyes.

“Yes, I do,” she almost snapped.  “You represent so much.  Walderhurst ought to be here.  I’m not fit to take care of you.”

“I ought to be taking care of you,” said Emily, with gentle gravity.  “I am the older and stronger.  You are not nearly so well as I am.”

Hester startled her by bursting into tears.

“Then do as I tell you,” she said.  “Don’t go anywhere alone.  Take Jane Cupp with you.  You have nearly had two accidents.  Make Jane sleep in your dressing-room.”

Emily felt a dreary chill creep over her.  That which she had felt in the air when she had slowly turned an amazed face upon Jane in the Lime Avenue, that sense of the strangeness of things again closed her in.

“I will do as you wish,” she answered.

But before the next day closed all was made plain to her, all the awfulness, all the cruel, inhuman truth of things which seemed to lose their possibility in the exaggeration of proportion which made their incongruous ness almost grotesque.

The very prettiness of the flowered boudoir, the very softness of the peace in the velvet spread of garden before the windows, made it even more unreal.

That day, the second one, Emily had begun to note the new thing.  Hester was watching her, Hester was keeping guard.  And as she realised this, the sense of the abnormalness of things grew, and fear grew with it.  She began to feel as if a wall were rising around her, built by unseen hands.

The afternoon, an afternoon of deeply golden sun, they had spent together.  They had read and talked.  Hester had said most.  She had told stories of India,—­curious, vivid, interesting stories, which seemed to excite her.

At the time when the sunlight took its deepest gold the tea-tray was brought in.  Hester had left the room a short time before the footman appeared with it, carrying it with the air of disproportionate solemnity with which certain male domestics are able to surround the smallest service.  The tea had been frequently served in Hester’s boudoir of late.  During the last week, however, Lady Walderhurst’s share of the meal had been a glass of milk.  She had chosen to take it because Mrs. Cupp had suggested that tea was “nervous.”  Emily sat down at the table and filled a cup for Hester.  She knew she would return in a few moments, so set the cup before Mrs. Osborn’s place and waited.  She heard the young woman’s footsteps outside, and as the door opened she lifted the glass of milk to her lips.

She was afterwards absolutely unable to describe to herself clearly what happened the next moment.  In fact, it was the next moment that she saw Hester spring towards her, and the glass of milk had been knocked from her hand and rolled, emptying itself, upon the floor.  Mrs. Osborn stood before her, clenching and unclenching her hands.