As she slept, she dreamed.  The door opened quietly, yet with a certain authority, and Constance, in her grave-clothes, came into her room.  The white gown trailed behind her as she walked, and the two golden braids, so like Barbara’s, hung down over either shoulder and far below her waist.

She fixed her deep, sad eyes upon Miriam, reproachfully, as always, but her red lips were curled in a mocking smile.  “Do your worst,” she seemed to say.  “You cannot harm me now.”

[Sidenote:  The Vision]

The vision sat down in a low chair and rocked back and forth, slowly, as though meditating.  Occasionally, she looked at Miriam doubtfully, but the mocking smile was still there.  At last Constance rose, having come, apparently, to some definite plan.  She went to the dresser, opened the lower drawer, and reached under the pile of neatly-folded clothing.

Cold as ice, Miriam sprang to her feet.  She was wide awake now, but the room was empty.  The door was open, half-way, and she could not remember whether she had left it so when she went to bed.  She had always kept her bedroom door closed and locked, but since Barbara’s illness had left it at least ajar, that she might be able to hear a call in the night.

Shaken like an aspen in a storm, Miriam lighted her candle and stared into the shadows.  Nothing was there.  The clock ticked steadily—­almost maddeningly.  It was just four o’clock.

She, too, opened the lower drawer of the dresser and thrust her hand under the clothing.  The letters were still there.  She drew them out, her hands trembling, and read the superscriptions with difficulty, for the words danced, and made themselves almost illegible.

Constance was coming back for the letters, then?  That was out of Miriam’s power to prevent, but she would keep the knowledge of their contents—­at least of one.  She thrust aside contemptuously the letter to Barbara—­she cared nothing for that.

[Sidenote:  The Seal Broken]

Taking the one addressed to “Mr. Laurence Austin; Kindness of Miss Leonard,” she went back to bed, taking her candle to the small table that stood at the head of the bed.  With forced calmness, she broke the seal which the dead fingers had made so long ago, opened it shamelessly, and read it.

“You who have loved me since the beginning of time,” the letter began, “will understand and forgive me for what I do to-day.  I do it because I am not strong enough to go on and do my duty by those who need me.

“If there should be meeting past the grave, some day you and I shall come together again with no barrier between us.  I take with me the knowledge of your love, which has sheltered and strengthened and sustained me since the day we first met, and which must make even a grave warm and sweet.

“And, remember this—­dead though I am, I love you still; you and my little lame baby who needs me so and whom I must leave because I am not strong enough to stay.

“Through life and in death and eternally,