Hannah Yates lost all the unnatural strength that had brought her among this splendor. She knew that it was scarcely possible that she could speak with Lady Carset that night, if she could, indeed, gain admittance to the castle; but she went around to a back entrance, and so made her way, unseen, to the tower-chamber, which opened into Lady Carset's dressing-room. There she sat down and waited, hour after hour, until at last the door opened, and the old countess came in, walking feebly between two young girls, one of whom she had never seen before, but the other made the sinking heart leap in her bosom.
When the old countess entered, the lights in her room were shaded, but they struck those masses of jewels in the snowy whiteness of her hair and upon her bosom with a brilliancy that revealed the gray pallor of that aged face with painful distinctness.
Hannah Yates arose from the shaded place in which she was sitting, and came forward to support her old mistress.
The countess looked up, and a faint smile flickered across her face.
"Ah! Yates, is it you?"
Mrs. Yates made no answer, but took that frail form in her arms and carried it to the couch.
"Take them off! take them off! They are heavy, ah, so heavy!"
The old lady put a waving hand to her head, indicating that it was the diamonds that troubled her.
Mrs. Yates, who had performed this office many a time before, unclasped the jewels and laid them on a sofa-table close by, then she removed the burning stones from that oppressed bosom, and unclasped them from the slender arms, while her mistress lay struggling for breath, with her eyes fixed on that kind old face with a look of touching helplessness.
"Give me water," she whispered.