to lie in the cold, dark grave alone with the worm and corruption. Violet’s heart bled at the thought. She opened the drawing-room door softly, and entering, crept to the side of the couch upon which the body lay. The burial casket would not arrive until a late hour that night, so the body had been placed upon a low couch strewn with fragrant flowers. In an adjoining room, Doctor Danton and a grave-faced man, a stranger to Violet, sat alone. No one else kept watch, for it was a special request of the old physician. He had been Rosamond Arleigh’s medical adviser for years, and was like a brother to her. Violet crept to the side of the couch where the cold form was lying, and knelt down. She buried her face upon the pillow beside the cold cheek. “Mamma, mamma!” wailed the girl in broken accents. “Come back to me, mamma, for oh, I can not live without you!” It was the burden of her cry—a cry which has gone up from many an aching heart, but all in vain. The words died upon her lips in a stifled groan. Powers[Pg 49] above! could it be true? Was her brain turning, or had she imagined it? Surely—surely she had seen the eyelids flutter, and something like a feeble respiration stirred the snowy linen on Rosamond Arleigh’s breast. [Pg 49] [Pg 50] [Pg 50] CHAPTER VI. Pale and trembling with excitement, Violet knelt at the side of the body, her eyes fastened with burning intensity upon the white, still face. Had she deceived herself, or did she really see the linen upon her mother’s breast move slightly? Who has not imagined similar improbabilities when gazing upon the corpse of a loved one? The closed eyes seem striving to open, the chest appears to rise and fall; even one may fancy that the breath flutters feebly from between the parted lips. But what Violet Arleigh saw as she knelt at the side of the couch was this: A shiver seemed to run over the still, rigid form, and one hand, lying upon the breast, moved slightly. With a stifled cry, the girl started to her feet, and rushing to the door of the room where the physician sat, threw it open. “Doctor Danton!”—her voice low and awe-stricken—“for the love of Heaven, come to my mother; she is——” The physician raised the fore-finger of his right hand and laid it lightly upon her lips with a gesture of silence. “Hush!” he
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