"Who's that? What are you doing to me?"
"Nothing, ma'am. It's only me—Elizabeth."
At the familiar soothing voice the poor woman—a poor, wretched, forlorn woman she looked, lying there, in spite of all her grandeur—turned feebly round.
"Oh, Elizabeth, I'm so ill! take care of me." And she fainted away once more.
It was some time before she came quite to herself, and then the first thing she said was to bid Elizabeth bolt the door and keep every body out.
"The doctor, ma'am if he comes?"
"I'll not see him. I don't want him. I know what it is. I—"
She pulled Elizabeth closer to her, whispered something in her ear, and then burst into a violent fit of hysterical weeping.
Amazed, shocked, Elizabeth at first did not know what to do; then she took her mistress's head on her shoulder, and quieted her by degrees almost as she would a child. The sobbing ceased, and Mrs. Ascott lay still a minute, till suddenly she clutched Elizabeth's arm.
"Mind you don't tell. He doesn't know, and he shall not; it would please him so. It does not please me. Sometimes I almost think I shall hate it because it is his child."