I approached nearer to the bedside, and spoke to her again, in the hope to win her tenderly towards dreaming of better things.  I know not whether she heard me, but her wild thoughts changed—­changed darkly to later events.

“Beds! beds!” she cried, “beds everywhere, with dying men on them!  And one bed the most terrible of all—­look at it!  The deformed face, with the white of the pillow all round it! His face? his face, that hadn’t a fault in it?  Never!  It’s the face of a devil; the finger-nails of the devil are on it!  Take me away! drag me out!  I can’t move for that face:  it’s always before me:  it’s walling me up among the beds:  it’s burning me all over.  Water! water! drown me in the sea; drown me deep, away from the burning face!”

“Hush, Margaret! hush! drink this, and you will be cool again.”  I gave her some lemonade, which stood by the bedside.

“Yes, yes; hush, as you say.  Where’s Robert?  Robert Mannion?  Not here! then I’ve got a secret for you.  When you go home to-night, Basil, and say your prayers, pray for a storm of thunder and lightning; and pray that I may be struck dead in it, and Robert too.  It’s a fortnight to my aunt’s party; and in a fortnight you’ll wish us both dead, so you had better pray for what I tell you in time.  We shall make handsome corpses.  Put roses into my coffin—­scarlet roses, if you can find any, because that stands for Scarlet Woman—­in the Bible, you know.  Scarlet?  What do I care!  It’s the boldest colour in the world.  Robert will tell you, and all your family, how many women are as scarlet as I am—­virtue wears it at home, in secret; and vice wears it abroad, in public:  that’s the only difference, he says.  Scarlet roses! scarlet roses! throw them into the coffin by hundreds; smother me up in them; bury me down deep; in the dark, quiet street—­where there’s a broad door-step in front of a house, and a white, wild face, something like Basil’s, that’s always staring on the doorstep awfully.  Oh, why did I meet him! why did I marry him! oh, why! why!”

She uttered the last words in slow, measured cadence—­the horrible mockery of a chaunt which she used to play to us at North Villa, on Sunday evenings.  Then her voice sank again; her articulation thickened, and grew indistinct.  It was like the change from darkness to daylight, in the sight of sleepless eyes, to hear her only murmuring now, after hearing her last terrible words.

The weary night-time passed on.  Longer and longer grew the intervals of silence between the scattered noises from the streets; less and less frequent were the sounds of distant carriage-wheels, and the echoing rapid footsteps of late pleasure-seekers hurrying home.  At last, the heavy tramp of the policeman going his rounds, alone disturbed the silence of the early morning hours.  Still, the voice from the bed muttered incessantly; but now, in drowsy, languid tones:  still, Mr. Bernard did not return:  still the father of the dying girl never came, never obeyed the letter which summoned him for the last time to her side.