That was the burden of Cytherea Aldclyffe.

‘I suppose you must leave me again—­you always leave me,’ she said, after holding the young woman’s hand a long while in silence.

‘No—­indeed I’ll stay always.  Do you like me to stay?’

Miss Aldclyffe in the jaws of death was Miss Aldclyffe still, though the old fire had degenerated to mere phosphorescence now.  ’But you are your brother’s housekeeper?’

‘Yes.’

’Well, of course you cannot stay with me on a sudden like this. . . .  Go home, or he will be at a loss for things.  And to-morrow morning come again, won’t you, dearest, come again—­we’ll fetch you.  But you mustn’t stay now, and put Owen out.  O no—­it would be absurd.’  The absorbing concern about trifles of daily routine, which is so often seen in very sick people, was present here.

Cytherea promised to go home, and come the next morning to stay continuously.

’Stay till I die then, will you not?  Yes, till I die—­I shan’t die till to-morrow.’

‘We hope for your recovery—­all of us.’

‘I know best.  Come at six o’clock, darling.’

‘As soon as ever I can,’ returned Cytherea tenderly.

’But six is too early—­you will have to think of your brother’s breakfast.  Leave Tolchurch at eight, will you?’

Cytherea consented to this.  Miss Aldclyffe would never have known had her companion stayed in the house all night; but the honesty of Cytherea’s nature rebelled against even the friendly deceit which such a proceeding would have involved.

An arrangement was come to whereby she was to be taken home in the pony-carriage instead of the brougham that fetched her; the carriage to put up at Tolchurch farm for the night, and on that account to be in readiness to bring her back earlier.

4.  MARCH THE THIRTIETH.  DAYBREAK

The third and last instance of Cytherea’s subjection to those periodic terrors of the night which had emphasized her connection with the Aldclyffe name and blood occurred at the present date.

It was about four o’clock in the morning when Cytherea, though most probably dreaming, seemed to awake—­and instantly was transfixed by a sort of spell, that had in it more of awe than of affright.  At the foot of her bed, looking her in the face with an expression of entreaty beyond the power of words to portray, was the form of Miss Aldclyffe—­wan and distinct.  No motion was perceptible in her; but longing—­earnest longing—­was written in every feature.

Cytherea believed she exercised her waking judgment as usual in thinking, without a shadow of doubt, that Miss Aldclyffe stood before her in flesh and blood.  Reason was not sufficiently alert to lead Cytherea to ask herself how such a thing could have occurred.

’I would have remained with you—­why would you not allow me to stay!’ Cytherea exclaimed.  The spell was broken:  she became broadly awake; and the figure vanished.