Slowly the girl seemed to come back to herself. 'Mother,' she said, 'is it you?' Then with a strange smile: 'I was foolish to wish to see. Bind my eyes! Hide me! I dare not look.'
'My child! there is nothing. But come to me. Hide your dear head. My little darling! My baby! Oh! if I might hide you so always,' said the poor woman, 'as I did when you were really a baby!'
Grace lay perfectly still, her head on her mother's arm.
'You are better, love?' she whispered, stroking her hair with trembling fingers.
'Yes,' answered the girl. 'But it will come back again. Dear, you must let me go.'
The next day she was too weak to rise. Everyone was distressed, and Trixy's anguish was terrible. But after the first shock she persisted that it was nothing.
'Sick people are subject to these fluctuations,' she said fiercely; 'Grace will be better to-morrow.'
But Lady Elton knew that the summons had come. She told Tom of the scene of the night. As he listened a ghastly pallor overspread his face, and he staggered like one who has received a blow.
'Some one has told her these hideous stories,' he cried with sudden anger. 'The horror of them is killing her.'