I was still under the sway of this new impression, when Mrs. Postlethwaite’s voice rose again, this time addressing the young girl: 

“You may go,” she said, with such force in the command for all its honeyed modulation, that I expected to see its object fly the room in frightened obedience.

But though the startled girl had lost none of the terror which had made her face like a mask, no power of movement remained to her.  A picture of hopeless misery, she stood for one breathless moment, with her eyes fixed in unmistakable appeal on mine; then she began to sway so helplessly that I leaped with bounding heart to catch her.  As she fell into my arms I heard her sigh as before.  No common anguish spoke in that sigh.  I had stumbled unwittingly upon a tragedy, to the meaning of which I held but a doubtful key.

“She seems very ill,” I observed with some emphasis, as I turned to lay my helpless burden on a near-by sofa.

“She’s doomed.”

The words were spoken with gloom and with an attempt at commiseration which no longer rang true in my ears.

“She is as sick a woman as I am myself”; continued Mrs. Postlethwaite.  “That is why I made the remark I did, never imagining she would hear me at that distance.  Do not put her down.  My nurse will be here in a moment to relieve you of your burden.”

A tinkle accompanied these words.  The resolute woman had stretched out a finger, of whose use she was not quite deprived, and touched a little bell standing on the tray before her, an inch or two from her hand.

Pleased to obey her command, I paused at the sofa’s edge, and taking advantage of the momentary delay, studied the youthful countenance pressed unconsciously to my breast.

It was one whose appeal lay less in its beauty, though that was of a touching quality, than in the story it told,—­a story, which for some unaccountable reason—­I did not pause to determine what one—­I felt it to be my immediate duty to know.  But I asked no questions then; I did not even venture a comment; and yielded her up with seeming readiness when a strong but none too intelligent woman came running in with arms outstretched to carry her off.  When the door had closed upon these two, the silence of my client drew my attention back to herself.

“I am waiting,” was her quiet observation, and without any further reference to what had just taken place under our eyes, she went on with the business previously occupying us.

I was able to do my part without any too great display of my own disturbance.  The clearness of my remarkable client’s instructions, the definiteness with which her mind was made up as to the disposal of every dollar of her vast property, made it easy for me to master each detail and make careful note of every wish.  But this did not prevent the ebb and flow within me of an undercurrent of thought full of question and uneasiness.  What had been the real purport of the scene to which I had just been made a surprised witness?  The few, but certainly unusual, facts which had been given me in regard to the extraordinary relations existing between these two closely connected women will explain the intensity of my interest.  Those facts shall be yours.