Standing beside the cot, she watched Mrs. Singleton measure the medicine from a vial into a small glass.  When the warden’s wife knelt down, and putting one arm under the pillow elevated it slightly, while she held the glass to the girl’s lips, Beryl attempted to push it aside.

“Take it for me, dear child; it will make you sleep, and ease your pain.”

The beautiful eyes regarded her wistfully, then wandered to the face of the lawyer and rested, spellbound.

“Here, swallow this.  It is not bad to take.”

Mrs. Singleton patted her cheek and again essayed to administer the draught, but without success.

“Let me try.”

Mr. Dunbar took the glass, but as he bent down, the girl began to shiver as though smitten with a mortal chill.  She writhed away, put out her shuddering hands to ward it off; and starting up, her eyes filled with a look of indescribable horror and loathing, as she cried out: 

“Ricordo!  Oh, mother—­it is Ricordo!  I see, it!  Father—­it was my Pegli handkerchief!—­with the fuchsias you drew!  Father—­ask Christ to pity me!”

She sank back quivering with dread, pitiable to contemplate; but after a few moments her hands sought each other, and her trembling lips moved evidently in prayer, though the petition was inaudible.  Mrs. Singleton sponged her forehead with iced water, and by degrees the convulsive shivering became less violent.  The wise nurse began in a subdued tone to sing slowly, “Nearer my God to Thee,” and after a little while, the sufferer grew still, the heavy lids lifted once or twice, then closed, and the laboring brain seized on some new vision in the world of fevered dreams.

Mrs. Singleton took the medicine from the attorney, and put it aside.

“Sleep is her best physic.  When these nervous shivers come on, I find a hymn chanted, soothes her as it does one of my babies.  Poor child! she makes my heart ache so sometimes, that I want to scream the pain away.  How people with any human nature left in them, can look at her and listen to her pitiful cries to her dead father, and her dying mother, and her far-off God, and then believe that her poor beautiful hands could shed blood, passes my comprehension; and all such ought to go on four feet, and browse like other brutes.  I am poor, but I vow before the Lord, that I would not stand in your shoes, Mr. Dunbar, for all the gold in the Government vaults, and all the diamonds in Brazil.”

Tears were dripping on the costly furs about Leo’s neck, as she moved closer to the attorney, and linked her arm in his: 

“Mr. Dunbar, we will detain my uncle no longer.  Mrs. Singleton has told me, that one of her children is ill, had a spasm last night; and since maternal duties are most imperative, it is impossible for her to give undivided attention to this poor sufferer.  If you will kindly take me down stairs, I will call at the ‘Sheltering Arms’, and secure the services of one of the ‘Sisters’ who is an experienced nurse.  This will relieve Mrs. Singleton, and we shall all feel assured that our poor girl has careful and tender watching, and every comfort that anxious sympathy can provide.”