"Thank you, you have answered me."

"I've not answered you, and I'm not going to. Margaret, will you please go away?"

The young lady laid herself down in bed, drew the clothes up over her shoulders, and turned her face from her friend. The countess observed her proceedings with something in her eyes, the meaning of which it was not easy to understand.

"Yes, my dear, I will go away, but that will make no difference to you--you'll feel as if I were at your bedside all the time; it will be worse for you than if I were. But I don't at all mind giving you an opportunity to think things over. You've told me something of what I want to know, and I rather fancy that when I see you again, you will tell me all the rest. Good-night, Vi; pleasant dreams; I hope that your foot won't keep you from sleeping. Shall I turn out these lights? You won't be able to sleep amidst all this illumination, and you've got that one over your bed."

The girl said nothing, but the lights went out; the one above her was not on, so that when the visitor had departed the room was in darkness.

Something kept Miss Forster from sleeping, and it was not her foot; it was her thoughts. The countess had prophesied truly: her going made no difference; she might as well have stayed, for all the peace she had left behind. What, the girl asked herself, as she lay there wrestling with the thoughts which banished sleep--what had she said; what had she admitted; what would she be made to admit when the countess could get at her again, before she was allowed to quit Avonham? What was more to the point--what had she to admit; what did she know?

That was where the iron entered into her soul, so that she hid her face on the pillow, and would have sobbed, only the tears refused to come. What did she not know? And, from what she knew, what did she not surmise? The leather bag in the old oak chest--what was in it? Did she not know as well as if the contents had been spread out in front of her? And it had been in Sydney's hand!

It was Sydney. She had tried to tell herself that it was not; that she had made a mistake; that there was a doubt about it; she could not be sure--how could she be sure when she had only seen him for an instant in a light which, after all, was no light at all? It was absurd to suppose that anyone could be certain, under such conditions, of another person's personality. Yet she was certain; she was sure.

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