’I suppose you told Mrs. Darrell that all was going on well when she came to inquire just now?’ I said.

‘Mrs. Darrell hasn’t been since you went to lie down, miss,’ the girl answered, looking surprised at my question.

’Why, Susan, you must surely forget.  Mrs. Darrell was in the dressing-room scarcely ten minutes ago.  I heard her coming out, and went to see who was there.  Didn’t she come in here to inquire about Miss Darrell?’

‘No, indeed, miss.’

’Then I suppose she must have peeped in at the door and seen that Miss Darrell was asleep,’ I said.

’I don’t see how she could have opened that door without my hearing her, miss.  It was shut fast, I know.’

It had been shut when I went in through the dressing-room.  I was puzzled by this incident, small as it was.  I knew that Augusta Darrell hated her stepdaughter, and I could not bear to think of that secret enemy hovering about the sick-room.  I was puzzled too by the look which I had seen in her face—­no common look, and not easy to be understood.  That she hated me, I had no doubt; but there had been fear as well as aversion in that look, and I could not imagine any possible reason for her fearing such an insignificant person as myself.

The rest of that evening and night passed without any event worth recording.  I kept the door of communication between the bedroom and dressing-room wide open all night, determined that Augusta Darrell should not be in that room without my knowledge; but the night passed, and she never came near us.

When I went into the garden early the next morning to gather the flowers for Milly’s room, I found Peter at work again.  He looked very white and feeble, scarcely fit to be about just yet; but there he was, sweeping the fallen leaves into little heaps, ready for his barrow.  He came to me while I was cutting the late roses for my bouquet, and asked after Milly.  When I had answered him he loitered by me for a little in a curious way, as if he wanted to say something else; but I was too full of my own thoughts and cares to pay much attention to him.

The next day, and the next, brought no change in my darling, and I was growing every hour more anxious.  I could see that Mr. Hale was puzzled and uneasy, though he said he saw no reason for telegraphing to Manchester, yet awhile.  He was very attentive, and was reputed to be very clever; and I knew that he was really attached to Milly, whom he had attended from her infancy.

Angus Egerton saw me twice every day; and these brief interviews had now become very painful to me.  I found it so difficult to cheer him with hopeful words, when my own heart was hourly growing heavier, and the fears that had been vague and shadowy were gathering strength and shape.  I was very tired, but I held out resolutely; and I had never once slept for so much as a quarter of an hour upon my watch, until the second night after that meeting with Mrs. Darrell at the door of the dressing-room.