Her poor lip trembled.

“I do not dare,” she whispered.  “Oh, what will Mr. Packard say!  Some one or something is working against us.  We have enemies—­ enemies, and Mr. Packard will never get his election.”

Her trouble was natural and so was her expression of it.  Feeling for her, and all the more that the cause of this concerted action against her was as much a mystery to me as it was to herself, I made some attempt to comfort her, which was futile enough, God knows.  She heard my voice, no doubt, but she gave no evidence of noting what I said.  When I had finished—­that is, when she no longer heard me speaking—­she let her head droop and presently I heard her murmur: 

“It seems to me that if for any reason he fails to get his election I shall wish to die.”

She was in this state of dejection, with the echo of this sad sentence in both our ears, when a light tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Letty, the nurse-maid.  She wore an unusual look of embarrassment and held something crushed in her hand.  Mrs. Packard advanced hurriedly to meet her.

“What is it?” she interrogated sharply, like one expectant of evil tidings.

“Nothing! that is, not much,” stammered the frightened girl, attempting to thrust her hand behind her back.

But Mrs. Packard was too quick for her.

“You have something there!  What is it?  Let me see.”

The girl’s hand moved forward reluctantly.  “A paper which I found pinned to the baby’s coat when I took her out of the carriage,” she faltered.  “I—­I don’t know what it means.”

Mrs. Packard’s eyes opened wide with horror.  She seized the paper and staggered with it to one of the windows.  While she looked at it, I cast a glance at Letty.  She was crying, from what looked like pure fear; but it was the fear of ignorance rather than duplicity; she appeared as much mystified as ourselves.

Meanwhile I felt, rather than saw, the old shadow settling fast upon the head of her who an hour before had been so bright.  She had chosen a place where her form could not fail of being more or less concealed by the curtain, and though I heard the paper rattle I could not see it or the hand which held it.  But the time she spent over it seemed interminable before I heard her utter a sharp cry and saw the curtains shake as she clutched them.

It seemed the proper moment to proffer help, but before either Letty or I could start forward, her command rang out in smothered but peremptory tones: 

“Keep back!  I want no one here!” and we stopped, each looking at the other in very natural consternation.  And when, after another seemingly interminable interval, she finally stepped forth, I noted a haggard change in her face, and that her coat had been torn open and even the front of her dress wrenched apart as if she felt herself suffocating, or as if—­but this alternative only suggested itself to me later and I shall refrain from mentioning it now.